One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
This passage further elaborates on the concept of "twoness," describing the internal conflict of being both American and Negro, with warring ideals within one body.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host.
The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom.