W.E.B. Du Bois: “It would mean today that black men in the South would have to be treated with consideration, have their wishes respected…”

The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.

But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.

So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?

Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this…