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The Negro cannot stand the present reactionary tendencies and unreasoning drawing of the color line indefinitely without discouragement and retrogression. And the condition of the Negro is ever the cause for further discrimination.

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
Stand
Tendencies
Lines
Condition
Unreasoning
Causes
Drawing
Indefinitely
Cannot
Line
Reactionary
Ever
Conditions
Reactionaries
Without
Cause
Discouragement
Color
Negro
Present
Discrimination

More quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois

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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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One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The severest charge that can be brought against the Christian education of the Negro in the South during the last thirty years is the reckless way in which sap-headed young fellows, without ability, and, in some cases, without character, have been urged and pushed into the ministry.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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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Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, - this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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If the unemployed could eat plans and promises, they would be able to spend the winter on the Riviera.
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.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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It is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of yours to blossom and bear its fruit. So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world's work to its highest perfection.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Men must not only know, they must act.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Lord, make us mindful of the little things that grow and blossom in these days to make the world beautiful for us.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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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!
W. E. B. Du Bois
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When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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The merchant must be no more pessimist than optimist, since pessimism induces him to hold back his capital but optimism induces him to take such risks that he has more to tear than to hope. Abu al'Fadl Ja'far al-Dimishqi (c. 9th century) Arab writer. The Beauties of Commerce Business pays ... philanthropy begs.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Liberty trains for liberty.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Histories of the world omitted China if a Chinaman invented compass or movable type or gunpowder we promptly forgot it and named their European inventors. In short, we regarded China as a sort of different and quite inconsequential planet.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to stretch their arms and their souls the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine, and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color thinking, dreaming, working as they will in a kingdom of beauty and love.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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It is as though nature must needs make men narrow in order to give them force.
W. E. B. Du Bois
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At best, the natural good-nature is edged with complaint or has changed into sullenness and gloom. And now and then it blazes forth in veiled but hot anger.
W. E. B. Du Bois