Me? Which I'd rather be ? You know what I'd rather do? If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun and just end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog.

Fountain Hughes interviewed by Hermond Norwood in Baltimore on 06/11/49 at the age of 101 talking about growing up as a slave in these United States.

Voices from the Days of Slavery. Library of Congress site on American Memory provided via blog sensei.