Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/177

Rh clothing store in Boston in 1827. He spoke to various audiences of Negroes in 1828 and the following year published the celebrated “Appeal in four articles, together with a preamble to the Colored Citizens of the World but in particular and very expressly to those of the United States of America.” It was a thin volume of 76 octavol pages, but it was frank and startlingly clear:

“Can our condition be any worse? Can it be more mean and abject? If there are any changes, will they not be for the better though they may appear for the worst at first? Can they get us any lower? Where can they get us? They cannot treat us worse; for they well know the day they do it they are gone. But against all accusations which may or can be preferred against me, I appeal to heaven for my motive in writing—who knows that my object is if possible to awaken in the breasts of my afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren a spirit of enquiry and investigation respecting our miseries and wretchedness in this Republican land of Liberty! ! ! !

“My beloved brethren:—The Indians of North and South America—the Greeks—the Irish, subjected under the King of Great Britain—the Jews, that ancient people of the Lord—the inhabitants of the Islands of the Sea—in fine, all the inhabitants of the Earth, (except, however, the sons of