They already dimly perceive that the paths of peace winding between honest toil and dignified manhood call for the guidance of skilled thinkers, the loving, reverent comradeship between the black lowly and the black men emancipated by training and culture.
Du Bois describes the emerging understanding among Black people that achieving peace and dignified manhood requires intellectual leadership and a supportive bond between the educated and the working class.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.