Chapter One

ONE

TAKING THE WORDS OUT OF BLACK MOUTHS:
Narcissism, Know-Nothingness, and White Intransigence

"Priscilla and I, and nine others, had been charged with
'disturbing the peace,' among other charges, because we tried
to order food at Woolworth. If not for segregation, and the
fact that we were all Negroes, we would have been served
without incident. At our trial on March 17, 1960,
Judge John Rudd ruled that our lawyers should
'get off that race question.' "
-PATRICIA STEPHENS DUE

"[I]n 1955, that's when the gruesome murder of
Emmett Till came up in Mississippi. I remember how
the Charlotte Observer, which was supposed to be a liberal
or moderate newspaper, condemned the NAACP,
saying it was just as bad as the Ku Klux Klan
in raising 'racial' issues about this murder."
-JOHN DORSEY DUE JR.

"Among the topics that the southern white man did not
like to discuss with Negroes were the following: American
white women; the Ku Klux Klan; France, and how Negro
soldiers fared while there; French women; Jack Johnson;
the entire northern part of the United States; the civil war;
Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Grant; General Sherman; Catholics;
the Pope; Jews; the Republican Party; Slavery, Social
Equality, Communism; Socialism; the 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments to the Constitution; or any
topic calling for positive knowledge or manly
self-assertion on the part of the Negro."
-RICHARD WRIGHT

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence;
then success is sure."
-MARK TWAIN



Black pe