Their words
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”
Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), The Forethought
Context In the opening note of his essay collection on Black life in the United States a generation after Emancipation, Du Bois named racial division as the century's central issue.
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More words from W. E. B. Du Bois
“Education must not simply teach work — it must teach Life.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States♥ 0
“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas…”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States♥ 0
“We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States♥ 0
“Work, culture, liberty — all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each…”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States♥ 0
“We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States♥ 0
“We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil, and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States♥ 0
More words from Culture & Ideas
“Emotion is Black, as reason is Hellenic.”
Léopold Sédar Senghor Senegal♥ 0
“With my music I create a change. I see it. So really I am using my music as a weapon.”
Fela Kuti Nigeria♥ 0
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa♥ 0
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