If now the economic development of the South is to be pushed to the verge of exploitation, as seems probable, then we have a mass of workingmen thrown into relentless competition with the workingmen of the world, but handicapped by a training the very opposite to that of the modern self-reliant democratic laborer.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “If now the economic development of the South is to be pushed to the verge of exploitation, as seems probable, then we…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois warns that the economic development of the South risks exploiting Black laborers who are ill-prepared for modern competition due to their history of enslavement.
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