““In the beginning—and neither can this be overstated—a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not know what he has done to merit it. And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he has done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him—for that is what it is—is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils.””
![“People are taking it for granted that [the Negro] ought…” quote by Paul Laurence Dunbar](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2b6/paul-laurence-dunbar-18887_believe_people-are-taking-it-for-granted-that-th_1424628.jpg)
