It has been received in all parts of the country with an undefined sort of repugnance, a sort of squeamishness, which is incident to all such violations of moral prejudices, and invariably wears off on familiarity with the subject.
Du Bois describes the initial societal discomfort with the idea of reopening the slave trade.
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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.
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…
But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
In song and exhortation swelled one refrain—Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand.