Maintaining Sanity in the Midst of Unrelenting Oppression

When asked by the publisher of this manuscript to write a brief statement for the cover of this book, we were immediately driven to the second stanza of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson and J.R. Rosamond Johnson. The second stanza says, Stony the road we trod Bitter the chastening rod Felt in the days when hope unborn had died Yet with a steady beat Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered