W.E.B. Du Bois: “Wast thou so jealous of one little coign of happiness that thou must needs enter there,—thou, O Death?”

Three things characterized this religion of the slave,—the Preacher, the Music, and the Frenzy.

Yet even then the hard ruthless rape of the land began to tell.

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.

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.