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 only civilized, if not the only state on earth, where a human being would be burned alive.

The Selected Writings of James Weldon Johnson: Social, political, and literary essays (ed. Oxford University Press on Demand, 1995) - ISBN: 9780195076455