For we must never forget that the economic system of the South to-day which has succeeded the old regime is not the same system as that of the old industrial North, of England, or of France, with their trade-unions, their restrictive laws, their written and unwritten commercial customs, and their long experience.
Du Bois contrasts the economic systems of the post-Civil War South with those of the industrial North, highlighting significant differences.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.
Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.