By Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan, eds, Houghton Mifflin Co, 2000, 0-618-04370-5

[p2] [Mark Twain, Corn-pone Opinions] It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist.

[pNN] [Langston Hughes, Bop, 1949] Then I have to go into my whole pedigree because I am a black man in a white neighborhood. And, if my answers do not satisfy them, BOP! … MOP! BE-BOP! …. MOP! If they do not hit me, they have already hurt my soul. A_dark_man_shall_see_dark_days. Bop comes out of them dark days. That’s why real Bop is mad, wild, frantic, crazy – and not to be dug unless you’ve seen dark days, too. Folks who ain’t suffered much cannot play Bop, neither appreciate it. They think Bop is nonsense like you. They think it’s just crazy crazy. They do no know Bop is also MAD CRAZY, SAD CRAZY, FRANTIC WILD CRAZY – beat out of somebody’s head! That’s what Bop is. Them young colored kids who started it, they know what Bop is.

[p269] [Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963. written to clergy about “unwise and untimely” activities of MLK] Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.