W.E.B. Du Bois: “But now and then the crisscross rails or straight palings break into view, and then we know a touch of culture is near.”

The direct result of this system is an all-cotton scheme of agriculture and the continued bankruptcy of the tenant.

With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why…

The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him.

But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.