The Public Record
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. He completed graduate work at Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He was a professor at Atlanta University and over the course of his life wrote many books and articles. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra on August 27, 1963.
Three temptations he met on those dark dunes that lay gray and dismal before the wonder-eyes of the child: the temptation of Hate, that stood out against the red dawn; the temptation of Despair, that darkened noonday; and the temptation of…
This is the story of a human heart,—the tale of a black boy who many long years ago began to struggle with life that he might know the world and know himself.
Sleep, then, child,—sleep till I sleep and waken to a baby voice and the ceaseless patter of little feet—above the Veil.
The wretched of my race that line the alleys of the nation sit fatherless and unmothered; but Love sat beside his cradle, and in his ear Wisdom waited to speak.
Are there so many workers in the vineyard that the fair promise of this little body could lightly be tossed away?
Was not the world’s alembic, Time, in his young hands, and is not my time waning?
Why may I not rest me from this restlessness and sleep from this wide waking?
And all have I foregone at that command, and with small complaint,—all save that fair young form that lies so coldly wed with death in the nest I had builded.
Surely there shall yet dawn some mighty morning to lift the Veil and set the prisoned free.
Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you.
Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow.