W.E.B. Du Bois: “Had not votes made war and emancipated millions?”

Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.

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

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

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.