Indeed, here among American Negroes we have exemplified the last and worst refuge of industrial caste.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “Indeed, here among American Negroes we have exemplified the last and worst refuge of industrial caste.”
Editor's note · Context
This statement reflects on the entrenched industrial caste system among American Negroes.
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The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
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?
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.