W.E.B. Du Bois: “And yet the fire through which Alexander Crummell went did not burn in vain.”

The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host.

By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission.

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…

A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom.