From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

"my task was one of revealing the human universals hidden within the plight of one who was both black and American, and not only as a means of conveying my personal vision of possibility, but as a way of dealing with the sheer rhetorical challenge involved in communicating across our barriers of race and religion, class, color and region -- barriers which ... still function to prevent what would o

"my task was one of revealing the human universals hidden within the plight of one who was both black and American, and not only as a means of conveying my personal vision of possibility, but as a way of dealing with the sheer rhetorical challenge involved in communicating across our barriers of race and religion, class, color and region -- barriers which ... still function to prevent what would otherwise have been a more or less natural recognition of the reality of black and white fraternity."

"Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain." (emphasis mine)