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 people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right.
Du Bois eloquently describes the central and often sacrificial role of Black Americans in shaping the nation's history and moral conscience.
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Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to…
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.