W.E.B. Du Bois: “Thus the Negroes’ ignorance of the labor-market outside his own vicinity is increased rather than diminished by the laws…”

I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.

The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people,—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking false means of…