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I don't know whether it's commonly known or not.

I've never heard about it before.

No, he just didn't believe that Phyllis Wheatley wrote the poems that someone showed him. There was also Frederick Douglass, much later, came out of slavery. One of the most articulate exponent of the importance of justice and decency. So, we've had models.

Of course, wasn't another woman Mary McLeod Bethune?

Oh sure, but that was the twentieth century, and Du Bois. I mean, look. Sure, there are these indications that certain human beings can overcome oppressions, and the list of these are very important examples, and our children should know it. Now, come back to my problem. This is not enough. Let's face it. The majority of human beings are not able to overcome flagrant, systematic rejections, humiliation, depression, racism. You just can't, and we don't know how the few who do can. I sometimes suspect luck. But what I do know is that the masses don't. I don't know and no one ever tries to find out because it's difficult, if not possible, to find out how many positive potentials among human beings do we lose among those who [?]. I don't know, for example, how many of my classmates, P.S. 5, and 139 in Harlem, were potentially able to contribute more to this society than people think that I've contributed. I do know that when I was in school in Harlem that there were a number of my classmates who seemed to me brighter than