Rise up singing Book

This marvelous book begins with an essay by former slave Richard Allen: At length our master said he was convinced that religion made slaves better and not worse, and often boasted of his slaves for their honesty and industry . It ends with the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar: Then like a cold wave on a shore, / Comes silence and she sings no more. / I wake, I breathe, I think again, / And walk the sordid ways of men.

I couldn't put down James Weldon Johnson's, "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man." He describes a lynching and then reflects: Whenever I hear protests from the South that it should be left alone to deal with the Negro question, my thoughts go back to that scene of brutality and savagery. I do not see how a people that can find in its conscience any excuse whatever for slowly burning to death a human being, or to tolerate such an act, can be entrusted with the salvation of a race.

We've heard the names W.E.B. DuBois, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth. But have we read their words? This collection of writings gives us all the chance to read of their experiences, failures, successes, desires, and disappointments. There are others that most of us haven't heard of, however, this book provides us the opportunity to be exposed to very talented, articulate voices that speak astounding truths.