Depravity, Sin, Redemption, Heaven, Hell, and Damnation are preached twice a Sunday after the crops are laid by; and few indeed of the community have the hardihood to withstand conversion.
From his seminal work on Black American life and culture, this passage describes the pervasive influence of religious preaching in the rural South.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.