W.E.B. Du Bois: “The way, O God, show us the way and point us the path!”

One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom.

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.

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