What is thus true of all communities is peculiarly true of the South, where, outside of written history and outside of printed law, there has been going on for a generation as deep a storm and stress of human souls, as intense a ferment of feeling, as intricate a writhing of spirit, as ever a people experienced.
In his exploration of the American South, Du Bois describes the profound, unwritten spiritual and emotional struggles of its people.
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Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.