Look not upon me, because I am black, Because the sun hath looked upon me: My mother’s children were angry with me; They made me the keeper of the vineyards; But mine own vineyard have I not kept.
Du Bois poignantly conveys the pain of being judged by skin color and the neglect of one's own heritage.
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Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this…
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.