This represents the lowest economic depths of the black American peasant; and in a study of the rise and condition of the Negro freeholder we must trace his economic progress from the modern serfdom.
In his analysis of Black economic life, Du Bois identifies peonage as the nadir from which to trace the progress of Black freeholders.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
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.
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.