284 Quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois

Discriminating and broad-minded criticism is what the South needs, – needs it for the sake of own white sons and so daughters, and for the insurance of robust, healthy mental and moral development.

Education must not simply teach work - it must teach Life.

It can be safely asserted that since early Colonial times, the North has had a distinct race problem. Every one of these States had slaves, and at the beginning of Washington's Administration, there were 40,000 black slaves and 17,000 black freemen in this section.

As a race, the Negroes are not lazy.

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.

From the day of its birth, the anomaly of slavery plagued a nation which asserted the equality of all men, and sought to derive powers of government from the consent of the governed. Within sound of the voices of those who said this lived more than half a million black slaves, forming nearly one-fifth of the population of a new nation.

In the South, there was absence of any leadership corresponding in breadth and courage to that of Abraham Lincoln.

Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction.

The Negro was freed and turned loose as a penniless, landless, naked, ignorant laborer. Ninety-nine per cent were field hands and servants of the lowest class.