We shall demonstrate once again that in this great, inventive land
man’s idlest dreams are but the blueprints and mockups
of emerging realities, technologies and poems.
Here in the fashion of our pioneer forefathers,
who confronted the mysteries of wilderness, mountain and prairie
with crude tools and a self-generating imagination,
we are committed to facing with courage
the enormous task of imposing an ever more humane order
upon this bewilderingly diversified and constantly changing society.
Committed we are to maintaining its creative momentum.
Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth
