Not a cent of money, not an inch of land, not a mouthful of victuals,—not even ownership of the rags on his back.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “Not a cent of money, not an inch of land, not a mouthful of victuals,—not even ownership of the rags on his back.”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois vividly describes the complete lack of material possessions and economic support faced by newly emancipated Black Americans after the Civil War.
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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.
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?