More Quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong - this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it.
Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it.
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.
Men must not only know, they must act.
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
Would America have been America without her Negro people?
Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
