The rod of empire that passed from the hands of Southern gentlemen in 1865, partly by force, partly by their own petulance, has never returned to them.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “The rod of empire that passed from the hands of Southern gentlemen in 1865, partly by force, partly by their own…”
Editor's note · Context
This passage from "The Souls of Black Folk" describes the post-Civil War shift of political and economic power away from the traditional Southern elite.
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So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
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.
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?