When asked by the publisher of this manuscript to write a brief statement for the cover of this book, we were immediately driven to the second stanza of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson and J.R. Rosamond Johnson. The second stanza says, Stony the road we trod Bitter the chastening rod Felt in the days when hope unborn had died Yet with a steady beat Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered Out from the gloomy past Till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast To our sisters and brothers, keep praying, keep singing, and keep going to safe places to cry! Our sanity demands.