Here there can be none of that social going down to the people,—the opening of heart and hand of the best to the worst, in generous acknowledgment of a common humanity and a common destiny.
Du Bois describes the absence of genuine social outreach and recognition of shared humanity between different societal strata in the segregated South.
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Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.
By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission.
Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.