Golden apples are beautiful—I remember the lawless days of boyhood, when orchards in crimson and gold tempted me over fence and field—and, too, the merchant who has dethroned the planter is no despicable parvenu.
Du Bois reminisces about the allure of beauty and temptation, contrasting youthful innocence with the complexities of adult ambition.
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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.
He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world.
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.
Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,—and behold the suicide of a race!