arrow the
opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who
spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again,
believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their
Maker stamped on a brother's soul.

I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I
believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio
of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of
weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows
the death of that strength.

I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and
their souls, the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to
choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads,
uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom
of beauty and love.

I believe in the Training of Children, black even as white; the leading
out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters,
not for pelf or peace, but for life lit by some large vision of beauty
and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers,
like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation.

Finally, I believe in Patience--patience with the weakness of the Weak
and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the
ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the
mad chastening of Sorrow.

I

THE SHADOW OF YEARS

I was born by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills, five
years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The house was quaint, with
clapboards running up and down, neatly trimmed, and there were five
rooms, a tiny porch, a rosy front yard, and unbelievably delicious
strawberries in the rear. A South Carolinian, lately come to the
Berkshire Hills, owned all this--tall, thin, and black, with golden
earrings, and given to religious trances. We were his transient tenants
for the time.

My own people were part of a great clan. Fully two hundred years before,
Tom Burghardt had come through the western pass from the Hudson with his
Dutch captor, "Coenraet Burghardt," sullen in his slavery and achieving
his freedom by volunteering for the Revolution at a time of sudden
alarm. His wife was a little, black, Bantu woman, who never became
reconciled to this strange land; she clasped her knees and rocked and
crooned:

"Do bana coba--gene