The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.
In his seminal work, Du Bois famously declares the global challenge of racial division as the defining issue of the new century.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.
One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
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.