W.E.B. Du Bois pictured “the first and greatest step toward the settlement of the present friction between the races…lies in the correction of the immorality, crime, and laziness among the Negroes themselves, which still remains as a heritage of slavery.” This framing of slavery as a demoralizing force was the mirror image of the Jim Crow historian’s framing of slavery as a civilizing force. Both positions led Americans toward behavioral racist ideas: Black behavior demoralized by freedom—or freed Black behavior demoralized by slavery.
