W.E.B. Du Bois: “Last year I looked death in the face and found its lineaments not unkind.”

Yet even then the hard ruthless rape of the land began to tell.

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

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…

This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.