W.E.B. Du Bois: “So common is this that one-half think it normal; so unquestioned, that we almost fear to question if the end of racing…”

Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.

Three things characterized this religion of the slave,—the Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.

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.

Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.