But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate.
This passage describes the psychological toll of pervasive prejudice, leading to self-doubt, self-disparagement, and the erosion of ideals.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.
I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.
By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission.