W.E.B. Du Bois: “In the dark days at Wilberforce I planned a time when I could speak freely to my people and of them, interpreting…”

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.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.

In song and exhortation swelled one refrain—Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand.