Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness. Let there spring, Gentle One, from out its … - W. E. B. Du Bois

"What rent do you pay here?" I inquired. "I don’t know, — what is it, Sam?" "All we make," answered Sam. It is a depressing place, — bare, unshaded, with no charm of past association, only a memory of forced human toil, — now, then, and before the war. They are not happy, these black men whom we meet throughout this region. There is little of the joyous abandon and playfulness which we are wont to associate with the plantation Negro.

Then, as the storm burst round him, he
rose slowly to his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea.
And the world whistled in his ears.

Here is the chance for young women and young men of devotion to lift again the banner of humanity and to walk toward a civilization which will be free and intelligent; which will be healthy and unafraid, and build in the world a culture led by black folk and joined by peoples of all colors and all races - without poverty, ignorance and disease!