" The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—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.
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. "

― W.E.B. Du Bois , The Souls of Black Folk