KemetLeads

Their words

“Education must not simply teach work — it must teach Life.”

Source: “The Talented Tenth”, in The Negro Problem (1903)

Context In an essay for a collection by leading Black writers, Du Bois argued for university education of a Black elite rather than industrial training alone.

Portrait of W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du BoisUnited States · 1868–1963
Read their story →

Pick the card background

Share on X WhatsApp All quotes

More words from W. E. B. Du Bois

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States
“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
“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
“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
“We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States
“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

More words from Culture & Ideas

“Emotion is African, as reason is Hellenic.”
Léopold Sédar Senghor Senegal
“With my music I create a change. I see it. So really I am using my music as a weapon.”
Fela Kuti Nigeria
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa