W.E.B. Du Bois: “If such a peon should run away, the sheriff, elected by white suffrage, can usually be depended on to catch the…”

They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at…

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…

Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.

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.