A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: ‘Oh, you’re a nigger too.’ I heard some black children say: ‘We knew he was colored. (Chapter 1)

I looked up into her face and repeated: ‘Tell me, mother, am I a nigger? (Chapter 1)

I felt leap within me pride that I was colored; and I began to form wild dreams of bringing glory and honor to the Negro race. (Chapter 3)

I thought: ‘Here I am a man, no longer a boy, and what am I going but wasting my time and abusing my talent? What use am I making of my gifts? What future have I before me following my present course? (Chapter 9)

A great wave of humiliation and shame swept over me. Shame that I belonged to a race that could be so dealt with; and shame for my country, that it, the great example of democracy to the world, should be the... (Chapter 10)