<P> The second chapter, "Of the Dawn of Freedom", covers the period of history from 1861 to 1872 and the Freedmen's Bureau . Du Bois also introduces the problem of the color - line . </P> <P> "The Problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color - line, - the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea . </P> <P> Du Bois calls the Freedmen's Burueau, "one of the most singular and interesting of the attempts made by a great nation to grapple with vast problems of race and social condition ." Du Bois goes on to quote the bureau as "one of the great landmarks of political and social progress ." After a year's work, Du Bois states, "it relieved a vast amount of physical suffering; it transported seven thousand fugitives from congested centres back to the farm; and, best of all, it inaugurated the crusade of the New England school - ma'am ." </P> <P> "The greatest success of the Freedmen's Bureau lay in the planting of the free school among Negroes, and the idea of free elementary education among all classes in the South ." </P>

The souls of black folk by du bois