W.E.B. Du Bois: “Thus the shadow of hunger, in a world which never needs to be hungry, drives us to war and murder and hate.”

Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.

One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.

The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.