“It opened up for me Soul windows which had been closed; it threw a noble and evident light on what I had begun to believe, because of what the world believes, ignoble and unnatural.”

On reading Carpenter's Ioläus and finding honour in a love the world called shameful · Letter to Alain Locke, 3 March 1923

• Books
• Love
• Self Knowledge

“Whether they relish the situation or not, Negroes should be concerned with making good impressions. They cannot do this by throwing wide every door of the racial entourage, to the wholesale gaze of the world at large. Decency demands that some things be kept secret; diplomacy demands it.”

Argues for privacy and tact as part of racial self-presentation in art · The Dark Tower column, Opportunity

• Dignity
• Privacy
• Race

“That is what has hindered the development of artists among us. Their one note has been the concern with their race. That is all very well, none of us can get away from it. I cannot at times.”

Admits race as inescapable feeling while resisting it as an artist's only subject · Interview, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 February 1924

• Artists
• Poetry
• Race