"I named all my children after flowers. There's Lillie and Rose and my son, Artificial."
"A black face, run-down shoes and elbow-out make-up give me a place to hide. The real Bert Williams is crouched deep down inside the coon who sings the songs and tells the stories."
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Source: Anne Higonnet, Berthe Morisot (1995). “Berthe Morisot”, p.199, Univ of California Press
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"I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America."
"People sometimes ask me if I would not give anything to be white, I answer, in the words of the song, most emphatically, 'No.' How do I know what I might be if I were a white man? I might be a sand-hog, burrowing away and losing my health for $8 a day. I might be a street-car conductor at $12 or $15 a week. There is many a white man less fortunate and less well equipped than I am. In fact, I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America."