On the recordJanuary 1, 1903
And yet with all this there was something sordid, something forced,—a certain feverish unrest and recklessness; for was not all this show and tinsel built upon a groan?
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois
Source
gutenberg.orgAnd yet with all this there was something sordid, something forced,—a certain feverish unrest and recklessness; for was not all this show and tinsel built upon a groan?
This passage critiques the superficial grandeur of the antebellum South, revealing the underlying human suffering that supported its wealth and extravagance.
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Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.
All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.