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.
This passage describes Du Bois's initial defiant response to racial exclusion, choosing to live "above" the veil with contempt for the world beyond it.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
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.
A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom.
By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission.
The direct result of this system is an all-cotton scheme of agriculture and the continued bankruptcy of the tenant.