"Over seventy black AMericans were lynched during the first year following the war, some of them returned soldiers still in uniform. Between June 1919 and the end of the year, approximately twenty-five race riots occured in urban areas. The new postion now was that blacks were no longer the helpless victims, but rather fought back, killing some of the white attackers. Du Bois's motto of all Americans 'closing ranks' was broken. He was to write in 1919: 'By the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not marshall every ounce...to fight a...more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our land.'"