Moreover, in a land where the tyranny of public opinion and the intolerance of criticism is for obvious historical reasons so strong as in the South, such a situation is extremely difficult to correct.
Du Bois reflects on the formidable challenge of reforming social conditions in the South, given the overwhelming influence of public opinion and resistance to criticism.
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The ten master songs I have mentioned tell in word and music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding; they grope toward some unseen power and sigh for rest in the End.
But the world listened only half credulously until the Fisk Jubilee Singers sang the slave songs so deeply into the world’s heart that it can never wholly forget them again.
Words and music have lost each other and new and cant phrases of a dimly understood theology have displaced the older sentiment.