W.E.B. Du Bois: “Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of being redeemed from the…”

Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.

Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom.

The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.

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…