THE GIFT _of_ BLACK FOLK _The Negroes in the Making of America_ by W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS PH. D. (HARV.) Author of “The Souls of Black Folk,” “Darkwater,” etc. Editor of _The Crisis_ _Introduction by_ EDWARD F. McSWEENEY, LL. D. [Illustration] 1924 THE STRATFORD CO., _Publishers_ BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Copyright, 1924 By THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS Chapter Page Foreword i Prescript 33 I The Black Explorers 35 II Black Labor 52 III Black Soldiers 80 IV The Emancipation of Democracy 135 V The Reconstruction of Freedom 184 VI The Freedom of Womanhood 259 VII The American Folk Song 274 VIII Negro Art and Literature 287 IX The Gift of the Spirit 320 FOREWORD It is not uncommon for casual thinkers to assume that the United States of America is practically a continuation of English nationality. Our speech is English and the English played so large a part in our beginnings that it is easy to fall more or less consciously into the thought that the history of this nation has been but a continuation and development of these beginnings. A little reflection, however, quickly convinces us that at least there was present French influence in the Mississippi Valley and Spanish influence in the southeast and southwest. Everything else however that has been added to the American nationality is often looked upon as a sort of dilution of more or less doubtful value: peoples that had to be assimilated as far as possible and made over to the original and basic type. Thus we continually speak of Germans and Scandinavians, of Irish and Jews, Poles, Austrians and Hungarians; and, with few exceptions, we regard the coming of the Negroes as an unmitigated error and a national liability.