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W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

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W. E. B. Du Bois was an influential American historian, sociologist, civil rights activist, and writer. Born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois is renowned for his advocacy for the rights of African Americans. He co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was a prominent figure in the civil rights movement. His seminal work, 'The Souls of Black Folk,' remains a foundational text in African American literature and thought.

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Famous W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

“I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.”

Ifs Black Race Doubt Fire Black Women Sincerely Devilish

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”

Inspirational Black Freedom Inspiring Liberty History Cost Social Justice Black History Repression Memorial Day Black History Month Black History Month Inspirational Black America Memorial Day Remembrance Black History Inspirational Black Inspirational Inspirational History

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“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.”

Knows Men Littles Age Lying Culture Black Poor Poverty Knowledge Diversity Tragedy Social Justice Ignorant Wicked Black History

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“I believe that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying through time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite development.”

Men Believe I Believe Black White Brother Brown

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“...in any land, in any country under modern free competition, to lay any class of weak and despised people, be they white, black, or blue, at the political mercy of their stronger, richer, and more resourceful fellows, is a temptation which human nature seldom has withstood and seldom will withstand.”

Source: The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois

“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!”

Men World Young Humanity Culture Black Chance Walks Race Poverty Ignorance Color Civilization Healthy Disease Intelligent Folks Devotion Lifts Young Man Young Women Banner Unafraid

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“This the American black man knows: his fight here is a fight to the finish. Either he dies or wins. If he wins it will be by no subterfuge or evasion of amalgamation . He will enter modern civilization here in America as a black man on terms of perfect and unlimited equality with any white man, or he will enter not at all. Either extermination root and branch, or absolute equality. There can be no compromise. This is the last great battle of the west.”

“How hard a thing is life to the lowly and yet how human and real is it? And all this life and love and strife and failure, - is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? The answer lies in each of us. For somewhere in your past ... somewhere some 100 years ago?there rose from the smoldering ashes of slavery?a proud and humble family who suffered and struggled with life. A family who found the strength to endure all the indignities of life in America, and that family had the hope for a taste of her bounties in the future.”

“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.”

Humans Long Real Soul Girl Black White Boys Study Breaths Breathe Greek Human Soul Boy And Girl Black Or White

Book:W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings

Source: W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings

“Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.”

“Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.”

Night House Black Half Watches Mines Son Wall Beats Stones Blue Prison Rounds Injustice Stranger Tall Shade Stubborn Palms Resignation Outcast Streaks

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“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.”

World Sometimes Past Dies Fall Stars Black Shadow Tales Flash Egypt Black History Here And There Brightness Ethiopia Sphinx

Book:The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk

“We black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.”

Men Seems Black Simple Dollars Desert Reverence Sole Black History Oasis Smartness Simple Faith

Book:The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois

Source: The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois

“Is a civilization naturally backward because it is different? Outside of cannibalism, which can be matched in this country, at least, by lynching, there is no vice and no degradation in native African customs which can begin to touch the horrors thrust upon them by white masters. Drunkenness, terrible diseases, immorality, all these things have been gifts of European civilization.”

“Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.”

Men World States Black United United States Crime Easier

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black.”

Men Black Labor Majority Workers Brown Yellow Emancipation

Book:Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880

Source: Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880

“I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.”

Men Believe Soul Form Opportunity I Believe Black White Possibility Particular Brother Development Essentials Infinite Features Brown Rough Times

Book:Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil

Source: Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil

“Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.”

Black White Poor Rich Protection Voting Deliberate Theft Robbery

Book:W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings

Source: W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections from His Writings