Men, I am authorized by Congress to tell you all that our people back in the States are mightily glad and proud at the way the soldiers have conducted themselves while in Mexico, and I, General Pershing, can say with pride that a finer body of men never stood under the flag of our nation than we find here tonight.
Du Bois relays a message of pride from Congress regarding the conduct of African American soldiers in Mexico.
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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.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.
This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.
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.