niggerness

Now if this scourge, this blues, this niggerness is so terrible; if it has been inflicted upon us for all these years; if it has infected the whole social and political body of this country and damaged its soul in the process, and if we have survived because we were “too damn mean to cry,”—not only because we “got good religion,” but because we “got good bread,” then we shouldn't even forget the experience, because it is a part of our uniqueness. We shouldn't ever forget the experiences of niggerness—the whole range of it.