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The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, -- the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.

W. E. B. Du Bois

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W. E. B. Du Bois
Age: 95 †
Born: 1868
Born: January 1
Died: 1963
Died: August 27
Autobiographer
Historian
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
Photographer
Poet
Social Worker
Great Barrington
Massachusetts
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
WEB Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois
Color
Races
Century
Asia
Lines
Islands
Race
Africa
America
Racism
Lighters
Problem
Relation
Lighter
Men
Sea
Darker
Line
Twentieth

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Men must not only know, they must act.
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We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.
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I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls.
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Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
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Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
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Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.
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Here is the chance for young women and young men of devotion to lift again the banner of humanity and to walk toward a civilization which will be free and intelligent which will be healthy and unafraid and build in the world a culture led by black folk and joined by peoples of all colors and all races - without poverty, ignorance and disease!
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The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
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I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.
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Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Herein lies the tragedy of the age: Not that men are poor, - all men know something of poverty. Not that men are wicked, - who is good? Not that men are ignorant, - what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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I believe that there are human stocks with whom it is physically unwise to intermarry, but to think that these stocks are all colored or that there are no such white stocks is unscientific and false.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.
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Harriet Tubman fought American slavery single handed and was a pioneer in that organized effort known as the Underground Railroad.
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All womanhood is hampered today because the world on which it is emerging is a world that tries to worship both virgins and mothers and in the end despises motherhood and despoils virgins.
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[We need reforms] to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and ancient and outworn creeds.
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When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not how does he look, but what is his message?. . . The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty. . . .
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.
W. E. B. Du Bois