At several points in the essay, Du Bois states that all races or ethnic groups operate hierarchically and that the top-down model applies to all human societies and groups. The difficulty for African Americans is that the talented tenth is not allowed to flourish because of legal proscription and race prejudice. This racial oppression underlies the essay but is especially notable at certain points. In discussing the slavery and abolition, Du Bois quotes Benjamin Banneker’s 1791 letter to Thomas Jefferson: “I am of the African race […] I now confess to you that I am not under that state of tyrannical thralldom and inhuman captivity to which too many of my brethren are doomed” (35). He quotes David Walker to a similar effect: “O, ye Christians, who hold us and our children in most abject ignorance and degradation that ever a people were afflicted with since the world began” (38). The normal top-down working of social improvement cannot operate for African American society because it has been kept in thralldom and ignorance. While there is no slavery in 1903, neither is there a level playing field.

The effects of slavery linger as seen in the statistical section of the essay. The total number of African American college graduates up to 1899 is only 2,304 and, of these, only 390 were educated at white institutions.