If all the black land-owners who had ever held land here had kept it or left it in the hands of black men, the Negroes would have owned nearer thirty thousand acres than the fifteen thousand they now hold.
This statement reflects on the potential land ownership of Black individuals had they been given better opportunities post-Emancipation.
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This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people,—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking false means of…
But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.
He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.