“One reads the more true deeper records of Reconstruction with
despair. It is without delay so primary and human, and but so futile. There is
no villain, no fool, no saint. There are only guys; men who crave ease
and vigour, men who know need and starvation, men who’ve crawled. They all
dream and attempt with ecstasy of worry and stress of effort, balked of
hope and hate. Yet the wealthy world is wide adequate for all, wants all,
needs all. So mild a gesture, a notice, might set the strife so as,
not with full content material, but with becoming break of day of achievement. Instead
roars the crash of hell…”
―
W.E.B. Du Bois,
from his basic historical past, Black Reconstruction in The US 1860-1880
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