The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning and today it is being fought out over his social recognition.

Johnson sketches a grim chronology of American racism as a moving target: when one justification for Black subordination becomes untenable, another replaces it. The “battle” shifts from denying Black people’s humanity, to denying their educability, to contesting their full inclusion in social life—suggesting that prejudice adapts to preserve hierarchy even as formal arguments change. The quote also implies a measure of progress (earlier claims have been defeated) while warning that the struggle is unfinished and now concentrated in the realm of social equality and recognition. In Johnson’s framing, civil rights is not only a legal or political contest but a fight over the everyday terms of belonging and respect.