We need her recognition of the freakish, her embrace of the grotesque, and her unerring confidence that we can perceive the truth. We need her humor to help us identify what to take seriously, and we need her particularity of time and place to recognize what is universal.

The debate between pragmatism and idealism is perennial, but Du Bois articulated clearly what sort of pragmatism can be countenanced, and what would frustrate its own purposes.

“You must accept them and accept them with love, for these innocent people have no other hope. They are in effect still trapped in a history which they do not understand and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.”

KingAn Author Profile By Josh Herring Martin Luther King’s idea of justice draws its power from the full scope of our tradition. ❧ Full name and titles: the

“But to this solemn resolution I came, I was free, and they should be free also—I would make a home for them in the North, and, the Lord helping me, I would bring them all there.”