But we must not forget that his chief influence was internal,—was exerted on the black world; and that there he was the ethical and social leader.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “But we must not forget that his chief influence was internal,—was exerted on the black world; and that there he was the…”
Editor's note · Context
This passage emphasizes that the primary influence of the pre-Civil War freedman was internal to the Black community, where he served as an ethical and social leader.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku-Klux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for…
To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes…
The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him.