If all the black land-owners who had ever held land here had kept it or left it in the hands of black men, the Negroes would have owned nearer thirty thousand acres than the fifteen thousand they now hold.
This statement reflects on the potential land ownership of Black individuals had they been given better opportunities post-Emancipation.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.
Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.
The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him.
Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.