A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
W. E. B. Du BoisTo be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
W. E. B. Du BoisThe kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.
W. E. B. Du BoisIt is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
W. E. B. Du BoisDaily 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.
W. E. B. Du Bois