W.E.B. Du Bois

We often forget that each unit in the mass is a throbbing human soul.

America is not another word for Opportunity to all her sons.

Much that the white boy imbibes from his earliest social atmosphere forms the puzzling problems of the black boy’s mature years.

They are ignorant of the world about them, of modern economic organization, of the function of government, of individual worth and possibilities,—of nearly all those things which slavery in self-defence had to keep them from learning.

Such class lines are by no means fixed; they vary, one might almost say, with the price of cotton.

Nevertheless, the evil is still deep seated, and only a general raising of the standard of living will finally cure it.

This widespread custom of two centuries has not been eradicated in thirty years.

The plague-spot in sexual relations is easy marriage and easy separation.

The average size of Negro families has undoubtedly decreased since the war, primarily from economic stress.

If he is ambitious, he moves to town or tries other labor; as a tenant-farmer his outlook is almost hopeless, and following it as a makeshift, he takes the house that is given him without protest.

Now and then one may find such a cabin kept scrupulously neat, with merry steaming fireplaces and hospitable door; but the majority are dirty and dilapidated, smelling of eating and sleeping, poorly ventilated, and anything but homes.

All over the face of the land is the one-room cabin,—now standing in the shadow of the Big House, now staring at the dusty road, now rising dark and sombre amid the green of the cotton-fields.