But when these variously constituted human particles are suddenly thrown broadcast on the sea of life, some swim, some sink, and some hang suspended, to be forced up or down by the chance currents of a busy hurrying world.
Du Bois uses a vivid metaphor to describe the diverse and often unpredictable outcomes for newly emancipated individuals navigating a complex post-slavery world.
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Then in after years when I came to Nashville I saw the great temple builded of these songs towering over the pale city.
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
Little of beauty has America given the world save the rude grandeur God himself stamped on her bosom; the human spirit in this new world has expressed itself in vigor and ingenuity rather than in beauty.