We can only understand the present by continually referring to and studying the past; when any one of the intricate phenomena of our daily life puzzles us; when there arises religious problems, political problems, race problems, we must always remember that while their solution lies in the present, their cause and their explanation lie in the past.
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“The Beginnings of Slavery,” Voice of the Negro, vol. 2 (1905), p. 104, as cited in James B. Stewart, “The Field and Function of Black Studies,” in The African American Studies Reader, edited by Nathaniel Norment, Jr. (Carolina Academic Press: 2007), p. 45.