It is no idle regret with which the white South mourns the loss of the old-time Negro,—the frank, honest, simple old servant who stood for the earlier religious age of submission and humility.
Du Bois critically observes the white South's lament for the "old-time Negro," revealing a desire for a past era of Black submission and humility.
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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.
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.
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.
The direct result of this system is an all-cotton scheme of agriculture and the continued bankruptcy of the tenant.