“Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within shall he live, — a Negro and a Negro's son. Holding in that little head — ah, bitterly! — the unbowed pride of a hunted race, clinging with that tiny dimpled hand — ah, wearily! — to a hope not hopeless but unhopeful, and seeing with those bright wondering eyes that peer into my soul a land whose freedom is to us a mockery and whose liberty is a lie.”

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. XI: Of the Passing of the First-Born

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W.E.B. Du Bois 62
American sociologist, historian, activist and writer 1868–1963

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