One cannot, to be sure, demand of whole nations exceptional moral foresight and heroism; but a certain hard common-sense in facing the complicated phenomena of political life must be expected in every progressive people.
Du Bois calls for a realistic approach to political life, expecting nations to confront complex social issues with common sense.
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All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.
Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,—a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a…
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why…