To build Thy Kingdom, To drape our wives and little ones, And set their souls a-glitter-- For this we killed these lesser breeds And civilized their dead, Raping red rubber, diamonds, cocoa, gold!
This passage critiques colonialism and exploitation, revealing the moral cost of building wealth.
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More from W.E.B. Du Bois
The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.
All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.
So the Cotton Kingdom still lives; the world still bows beneath her sceptre.
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.