Here it was that the Home was ruined under the very shadow of the Church, white and black; here habits of shiftlessness took root, and sullen hopelessness replaced hopeful strife.
This passage laments how the institution of slavery, even amidst religious presence, destroyed the Black home, fostered shiftlessness, and replaced hope with despair.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.
The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him.