W.E.B. Du Bois: “Today, therefore, we are challenging this ownership; we are demanding general consent as to what materials shall be…”

Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.

But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.

Would America have been America without her Negro people?

Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this…