Fisk, Atlanta, Howard, and Hampton were founded in these days, and six million dollars were expended for educational work, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of which the freedmen themselves gave of their poverty.
Du Bois notes the significant financial contributions made by freedmen towards their education, showcasing their commitment to self-improvement despite poverty.
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Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.
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.
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.