Chapter 7, "Wilberforce: Book, Mentor, Marriage" Summary and Analysis

Du Bois writes to Dollar that he feels out of place back in the U.S. He needs a job but is somewhat over qualified for the jobs whites are willing to give blacks and finally accepts $800 dollars a year as a classics chairman at Wilberforce University near Dayton, Ohio.

Wilberforce University gets its start as a place where slave owners and their concubines and mixed race children go for vacations. The resort is driven out of business, then opened a few years later as a school. Now thanks to some tricky legislation, taxpayers support the church-based school, which is partly headed by a bishop Arnett of the AME (American Methodist Episcopal) church. Frequent revival meetings at Wilberforce University keep students out of class, and the student's emotional wailing at these...