IN ESSENCE

One Muffled strain in the Silent South, 

a jarring chord and a vague and 

uncomprehended cadenza has been and still is the Negro.  

And of that muffled chord, the one mute 

and voiceless note has been 

the sadly expectant Black Woman...

The "other side" has not been represented by one who "lives there." 

And not many can more sensibly realize 

and more accurately tell the weight and 

the fret of the "long dull pain" than the open-eyed but 

hitherto voiceless Black Woman of America.  

As our Caucasian barristers are not to blame 

if they cannot quite put themselves in the dark man's place, 

neither should the dark man be wholly expected fully 

 and adequately to reproduce the exact 

Voice of the Black Woman.

Anna Julie Cooper,
A VOICE from the SOUTH (1892)