He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.
This passage succinctly states the ultimate goal of the Black American's struggle for identity and acceptance within the nation.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
The direct result of this system is an all-cotton scheme of agriculture and the continued bankruptcy of the tenant.
To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes…
Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.
Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.