First, we must realize that no such institution as the Negro church could rear itself without definite historical foundations.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “First, we must realize that no such institution as the Negro church could rear itself without definite historical…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois introduces his historical analysis of the Black church by emphasizing its deep-seated origins and development.
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Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.
Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to…
But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.
So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.