This widespread custom of two centuries has not been eradicated in thirty years.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “This widespread custom of two centuries has not been eradicated in thirty years.”
Editor's note · Context
From "The Souls of Black Folk," this sentence explains the enduring impact of historical practices on current social conditions among Black Americans.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!
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.
A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.