W.E.B. Du Bois: “The gold was theirs, not ours; but the gleam and glint was for all.”

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

So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.

Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.

They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at…