You may marshal strong indictments against them, but their counter-cries, lacking though they be in formal logic, have burning truths within them which you may not wholly ignore, O Southern Gentlemen!
In a direct address to white Southerners, Du Bois argues that the grievances of Black people contain undeniable truths that cannot be dismissed.
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Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom.
Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.
Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!