In February 1903, in Atlanta, Georgia, the brilliant African-American scholar W.E.B. DuBois wrote in the preface to his book The Souls of Black Folk: "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line."W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk(New York: New American Library, 1982), p. xi . DuBois's book, in which he struggled to articulate what he called "the strange meaning of being black," has been called prophetic in outlining the preoccupation with race that continues to this day. Almost any US newspaper, on any given day, will contain an article on racial profiling, race-related hate crimes, or the continuing—and sometimes stormy—discussions on affirmative action.
Yet, two years before DuBois wrote his preface, Mary Baker Eddy, another brilliant thinker, had courageously written in her poem "The New Century":
'Tis writ on earth, on leaf and flower:
Love hath one race, one realm, one power.
Dear God! how great, how good Thou art
To heal humanity's sore heart . . . Mary Baker Eddy, Poems, p. 22 .
