Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
We went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. We went into slavery with slave chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.
Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.

"The Problems of the Colored Race in the South," lecture, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 December 1895)

The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 93, Dec. 1895, U. of Illinois Press