If we could scan the calendar of thousands of lesser men, in like comparison, the result would be the same; but we cannot do this because of the deliberately educated ignorance of white schools by which they remember Napoleon and forget Sonni Ali.
He critiques the educational system that emphasizes European figures while neglecting significant leaders from African history.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Three things characterized this religion of the slave,—the Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.
The direct result of this system is an all-cotton scheme of agriculture and the continued bankruptcy of the tenant.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
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.