In Ch. 4, Janie meets Joe Starks, a very ambitious black man with huge, exciting dreams. In the passage describing him and explaining his motives, Hurston writes:

He had always wanted to be a big voice, but de white forlks had all de sayso where he come from and everwhere else, exceptin’ dis place dat colored folks was buildin’ theirselves. Dat was right too. De man dat built things oughta boss it. (28)

This quote reminded me of a comment Ishmael made in Moby-Dick when he was talking about the ethnic backgrounds of his shipmates and of people in the whaling industry in general:

As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are American born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. (107)