W.E.B. Du Bois: “The black beggar is never turned away without a good deal more than a crust, and a call for help for the unfortunate…”

They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at…

The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.

This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.

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