Race-prejudices, which keep brown and black men in their “places,” we are coming to regard as useful allies with such a theory, no matter how much they may dull the ambition and sicken the hearts of struggling human beings.
Du Bois critiques the prevailing theories that justify racial prejudice as a tool for social order, despite its devastating impact on individuals.
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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.
Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom.
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.
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.