I know little of music and can say nothing in technical phrase, but I know something of men, and knowing them, I know that these songs are the articulate message of the slave to the world.
Du Bois concludes his discussion of the spirituals by asserting their profound significance as a direct communication from the enslaved to humanity.
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Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things.
Over the inner thoughts of the slaves and their relations one with another the shadow of fear ever hung, so that we get but glimpses here and there, and also with them, eloquent omissions and silences.
Out of them rose for me morning, noon, and night, bursts of wonderful melody, full of the voices of my brothers and sisters, full of the voices of the past.