And so firm a hold did it have on the Negro, that many generations firmly believed that without this visible manifestation of the God there could be no true communion with the Invisible.
Du Bois highlights the profound and enduring belief among generations of Black people that visible spiritual manifestations were essential for genuine communion with the divine.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
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.