I have seen twelve-year-old boys working in chains on the public streets of Atlanta, directly in front of the schools, in company with old and hardened criminals; and this indiscriminate mingling of men and women and children makes the chain-gangs perfect schools of crime and debauchery.
Du Bois provides a stark eyewitness account of the chain-gang system in the South, highlighting its detrimental effects on youth.
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But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
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…
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.