I am the true vine, and My father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

—John 15:1–2

For the first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back, that dead-weight of social degradation partially masked behind a half-named Negro problem. He felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

—W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk