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W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

Historian

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

“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.”

People Ifs Humans Government Courses Given Chance Human Beings Theory Normal Democratic Average Bitter Democratic Government Given A Chance Bitter Experience

Book:Black Folk Then and Now (The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois): An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race

Source: Black Folk Then and Now (The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois): An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race

“One reads the truer deeper facts of Reconstruction with a great despair. It is at once so simple and human, and yet so futile. There is no villain, no idiot, no saint. There are just men; men who crave ease and power, men who know want and hunger, men who have crawled. They all dream and strive with ecstasy of fear and strain of effort, balked of hope and hate. Yet the rich world is wide enough for all, wants all, needs all. So slight a gesture, a word, might set the strife in order, not with full content, but with growing dawn of fulfillment. Instead roars the crash of hell.”

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 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.”

Thinking Believe Humans I Believe White Unwise

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.”

Men Humans Whole School House Education Wall Training Educational Literacy Mold

Book:The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays

Source: The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays

“Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.”

Life Believe Humans Hope Human Beings Greater Progress

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.”