In an address at Carnegie Hall marking Negro History Week Du Bois speaks to the "cruel dilemma" of African Americans. African Americans have made marked gains in civil rights so that they are "standing at the crossroads where we are emerging from serfdom into the twilight of freedom" and are presented with the possibility of embracing the "so-called American way of life." Yet, communist countries are doing a better job of keeping their populations fed, healthy and educated, and without the taint of racial discrimination. Faced with a country beholden to the interests of corporate capitalism and where freedom of expression has been immobilized by the Red Scare Du Bois asks whether African Americans should "bow and bend to America" or rather to "restore democracy to this nation, make it again possible for the people to express their will"?
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