W.E.B. Du Bois: “Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.”

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.

Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.

The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.