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W. E. B. Du Bois

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

“The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.”

People World Way Children Suffering Longing Disappointment Unhappy Wander Happy People Misty Unhappy People

Book:The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk

“No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.”

People Men Simple Situation Down And Ireland Schemes Assault Corpses Arrested Present Situation

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.”

People May Hurt Killing Betterment Hurting People

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.”

People Wells Long Has Beens Done Play Ill Finished Endless Justify

Author:W. E. B. Du Bois

“Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, he belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambitions of our brighter minds. The way for people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away.”

People Way Mind Rights Effects Higher Ambition Training Gains Injustice Reasonable Distinction Throwing Apologizing Brighter Castes Belittle

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

“Would America have been America without her Negro people?”

People Has Beens America Civil Rights Headstrong

Book:Three African-American Classics: Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Source: Three African-American Classics: Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“Unless modern civilization is a failure, it is entirely feasible and practicable for two races in such essential political, economic and religious harmony as the white and colored people in America, to develop side by side in peace and mutual happiness, the peculiar contribution which each has to make to the culture of their common country.”

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

“The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,—a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people.”

People Years May Found Nations Sin Simple Land Ignorance Shadow Ideals Disappointment Bitter Promised Land Deep Disappointment

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

“The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon Hell and Damnation-upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer.”

Source: Against Racism: Unpublished Essays, Papers, Addresses, 1887-1961

“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.”

“Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation, - we have fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this worth the striving? Would America have been America without her Negro People?”