So here we stand among thoughts of human unity, even through conquest and slavery; the inferiority of black men, even if forced by fraud; a shriek in the night for the freedom of men who themselves are not yet sure of their right to demand it.
Reflecting on the historical and contemporary challenges of race relations, this passage encapsulates the conflicting ideas of human unity and racial subjugation.
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But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
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…
Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.
All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.