Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.
W. E. B. Du BoisNothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.
W. E. B. Du BoisThe worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.
W. E. B. Du BoisNow is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
W. E. B. Du BoisHow 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.
W. E. B. Du Bois