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Red Summer

We return from fighting

May, 1919
U.S.

In May, following the first serious racial incidents, W. E. B. Du Bois published his essay "Returning Soldiers": We return from the slavery of uniform which the world's madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land.… We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.


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