The Black Box: Writing the Race

by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Second, Walker maintained that Black people themselves must establish a literature, a discourse, that refutes pro-slavery arguments: “For let no one of us suppose that the refutations which have been written by our white friends are enough—they are whites—we are blacks. We, and the world wish to see the charges of Mr. Jefferson refuted by the blacks themselves, according to their chance…. [O]ur oppression ought not to hinder us from acquiring all [of the learning and knowledge] we can,” for one day, when freedom belongs to all Black people, “then we will want all the learning and talents among ourselves, and perhaps more, to govern ourselves.”