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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.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Black Identity Poor Protection Rich Theft White
The world is shrinking together; it is finding itself neighbor to itself in strange, almost magic degree.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Magic Strange Togetherness World
I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Better End Life Live Long Love People Play Work
Life has its pains and evils-its bitter disappointments; but like a good novel and in healthful length of days, there is infinite joy in seeing the World, the most interesting of continued stories, unfold.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Disappointment Goodness Joy Life Pain Story World
One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Death Greatness Human Life Live Possible Progress Simplicity Time
Race prejudice decreases values, both real estate and human.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Human Prejudice Race Reality Value Worth
No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Goodness Selfish
Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, he belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambitions of our brighter minds. The way for people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ambition Joy Justice People Right Training World
To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Fire Mindset Play Training Weakness Wild
Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Children Learning Peace Teacher Yourself
The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin–the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Ability Clothes Determination Greatness Skin Wonderful World
Whiteness is ownership of the earth.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Earth White
To 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 BOIS

Hard Land Men Poor Race
One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Believe Death Greatness Human Life Live Possible Progress Simplicity Time
As Negro voting increased, Congress got an improved sense of hearing.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Hear Improvement Vote
The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.
W. E. B. DU BOIS

Class Device Devil Diversity Innocent Justice Sin

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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