Written by John Winters   

It’s hard to overestimate the power of words in African-American history and culture. Here was a race of people enslaved and forbidden by law to learn to read and write. Words were kept from their grasp, and, as the tools of the oppressor, they represented power -- the power that doomed them to a life in chains.

As Frederick Douglass wrote, in learning to read he “had penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man.”

Or, as Retha Powers intones in the introduction to the new book she’s edited, “Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations” (Little, Brown, 764 pages): “The art of the written word makes black lives visible…”

Powers is an editor and coeditor of previous anthologies, as well as assistant director of the publishing certificate program at City College of New York. She and her colleagues have cast a wide net over 5,000 years of literature, poetry, lyrics, proverbs, folk tales and more in order to compile this book.

When John Bartlett’s famous book of quotes first appeared in 1855, Douglass had just published the second installment of his autobiography. Yet, as famous as the former slave was as a bestselling author and well-known orator, he did not make it into Bartlett’s first edition. Meanwhile, only one woman did. In fact, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. writes in the foreword to “Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations,” not until 1968, when editor Emily Morrison Beck revamped the fourteenth edition of the book, were many more female and black voices added.

This is not the first book focusing exclusively on black quotations. For that, Henry Louis Gates Jr. cites 1898’s “Black-Belt Diamonds: Gems from the Speeches, Addresses, and Talks to Students of Booker T. Washington.” There have been many since, but “Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations” would seem to be the most comprehensive and, therefore, the best able to convey the complexity of the African-American experience.

The anthology reaches back to ancient Egypt, circa 2650 B.C., and brings us up to date with Jay Z and President Barak Obama. Open to any page and you’ll find words of praise, struggle, identity, victory, mourning and joy. You’ll encounter revolutionaries and great thinkers, along with the once humbled who beat back the tide of oppression and lifted themselves high.

A particular favorite African-American writer of mine is Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784). A young woman from Boston, who upon seeking to become the first African-American female in America to be a professionally published poet, was forced to prove her poems were of her own creation due to her status as a slave. “Imagination! Who can sing they force?/Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?” is one of the several lines of Wheatley’s poetry quoted here. When one considers her humble roots and immense accomplishments, along with the fact that she died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave, her words collected in this large and impressive tome, side by side with those of America’s first black president, are a trenchant reminder of what human beings are capable of and the sacrifices they must often make.

Many of the quotations in “Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations” deal with racial politics, each fine-tuned to the era that spawned them: “I will live down prejudice, I will crush it out. I will show to the world that a man may spring from a race of slaves, and yet far excel many of the boasted ruling race.” That’s from Charles Chesnutt (1858-1932), a writer, activist and lawyer.

“Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations: also includes Louis Farrakhan’s chilling claim, made in 1964, that Malcolm X “is worthy of death.” There is, understandably, lots of Martin Luther King Jr. in these pages (“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”), as well as the recently deceased Nelson Mandela (“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society… if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”).

The book is rife with lyrics, from old blues tunes and jazz standards to classic songs penned by Nina Simone, Chuck D of Public Enemy and Chuck Berry. Even “Rapper’s Delight” gets its due.

The infamous are also included. Former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry Jr., who, after discovering he was under surveillance while smoking crack thanks to the snitching of a female acquaintance, claims: “Bitch set me up.” And who could forget attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr.’s famous O.J. defense: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

Balance these entries with the truism spoken by the always wise and elegant Morgan Freeman, who sneered at what he saw as the patronizing idea of Black History Month by saying, “Black history is American history.”

“Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations” is a book full of wisdom like that, spoken or written by rappers, athletes, presidents, prisoners and many in between. One would be hard pressed to peruse these pages and not be moved and entertained.

The disembodied words on the page, it goes without saying, lack the oratorical verve of hearing them spoken by those they originated from. When one thinks of the preternatural fire and eloquence of Malcolm X, Dr. King, Maya Angelou or Angela Davis, merely reading the things they said hardly does justice. Luckily, recordings of these icons exist, and Bartlett’s latest anthology is the next best thing for those voices through the centuries that went unheard – literally and figuratively.

There are many names that will be unfamiliar to most readers in these pages. Meanwhile, some may wonder whether a book that quotes transcendent lines from slave narratives and Civil Rights speeches should also make room for Sade lyrics. I admit there are some strange bedfellows here. However, bear in mind that “Bartlett’s Book of Black Quotations” is, after all, a reference book. That means it’s meant to serve a wide variety of purposes.

Perhaps the purpose it best serves is in helping canonize some of the most beautiful and inspiring words in this language or any other. Whether you turn to it for a quick bit of text to round out a rousing speech, or dip into its pages for some edification or spiritual nourishment, it will stand tall on your shelf.

As singer James Brown might shout: “Say it loud!”

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