I speak and speak bitterly as a servant and a servant's son, for my mother spent five or more years of her life as a menial; my father's family escaped, although grandfather as a boat steward had to fight hard to be a man and not a lackey.
Du Bois speaks to the pain of his heritage as a descendant of servants, highlighting the societal barriers faced by African Americans.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.
He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.
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.