W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes About Color

• 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.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2010). “Darkwater: The Givens Collection”, p.31, Simon and Schuster

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• The Negro cannot stand the present reactionary tendencies and unreasoning drawing of the color line indefinitely without discouragement and retrogression. And the condition of the Negro is ever the cause for further discrimination.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass (2007). “Three African-American Classics: Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, p.279, Courier Corporation

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• I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

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• The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  The Souls of Black Folk ch. 2 (1903)

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• There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “The World and Africa and Color and Democracy”, p.165, Oxford University Press

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• But art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows Beauty, that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its headkerchiefs; that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance, too.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  W. E. B. Du Bois (2011). “Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept”, p.147, Transaction Publishers

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• Today I see more clearly than yesterday that the back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellow men.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Preface to reprint of The Souls of Black Folk (1969).

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• Here is the chance for young women and young men of devotion to lift again the banner of humanity and to walk toward a civilization which will be free and intelligent; which will be healthy and unafraid; and build in the world a culture led by black folk and joined by peoples of all colors and all races - without poverty, ignorance and disease!

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois' speech, www.scotsman.com. October 20, 1946.

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• The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, -- the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.

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  W. E. B. Du Bois

  The Souls of Black Folk ch. 2 (1903)

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