For sheer physical beauty, for sheen of water and golden air, for nobleness of tree and flower shrub, for shining river and song of bird and the low moving whisper of sun, moon, and star, it is the beautifulest stretch I have seen for twenty years; and then add to that fellowship – sweet strong women and keen-witted men from Canada and Texas, California and New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois – all sons and great-grandchildren of Ethiopia all with the wide leisure of rest and play, can you imagine a more marvelous thing than Idlewild. —Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Crisis magazine, 1921