W.E.B. Du Bois: “I hear now that Voice at midnight calling me from dull and dreamless trance,—crying, “The Shadow of Death!”

Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.

Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.

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

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…