Chapter 4, "The Age of Miracles: Fisk and Josie's World" Summary and Analysis

Great Barrington is a kinder place than the post-war South where Fisk University is located and where Du Boisgoes to college. Fisk Free Colored School first opens in 1866 after the Civil War. Former slaves eagerly attend, desiring to learn to read and write. Principal John Ogden renames the school Fisk University so that it can be turned into a real college. Funding dries up soon, but the students form a singing group and tour the world making enough money to save the University. Du Bois arrives 13 years later when there is a new president named Erastus Milo Cravath who is an old army man and Congregationalist chaplain. The school turns out four-year degree students with a high-level liberal arts education. Many Southern leaders...