All this vast expenditure of money and brains might have formed a great school of prospective citizenship, and solved in a way we have not yet solved the most perplexing and persistent of the Negro problems.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “All this vast expenditure of money and brains might have formed a great school of prospective citizenship, and solved in…”
Editor's note · Context
This reflection on the post-Civil War era critiques the failure to invest resources in Black citizenship and solve racial issues.
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