And for every land-owner who has thus hurried away from the narrow and hard conditions of country life, how many field-hands, how many tenants, how many ruined renters, have joined that long procession?
Du Bois poses a rhetorical question to emphasize the vast number of Black laborers and tenants forced to leave rural areas due to harsh economic conditions.
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Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
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…