But, on the other hand, the ropes and myths and knots and hindrances; the thundering waves of the white world beyond beating us back; the scalding breakers of this inner world,--its currents and back eddies--its meanness and smallness--its sorrow and tragedy--its screaming farce!
Du Bois vividly illustrates the complexities and struggles faced by the Black community in contrast to the outside world.
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So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.
Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.
Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to…
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.