And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive than the leadership of a group within a group?—that curious double movement where real progress may be negative and actual advance be relative retrogression.
Du Bois poses a rhetorical question about the unique challenges and paradoxical nature of leadership within a marginalized group.
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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.
The direct result of this system is an all-cotton scheme of agriculture and the continued bankruptcy of the tenant.
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.