The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host.
From his seminal work, this passage characterizes the immediate post-Civil War decade as a frustrating and unfulfilled pursuit of true freedom for Black Americans.
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This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people,—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking false means of…
He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.