Extended excerpt [Eulogy for Du Bois funeral, written by Du Bois in 1957]:

“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.” (p. 19)

Source link: “Dr. DuBois’ ‘Last Message to the World’ His Eulogy” (7 September 1963) Norfolk Journal and Guide Newspaper; online via University of Massachusetts: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b156-i237

Extended excerpt [Editorial essay]:

“We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land.

It lynches.

And lynching is barbarism of a degree of contemptible nastiness unparalled in human history. Yet for fifty years we have lynched two Negroes a week, and we have kept this up right through the war.

It disfranchises its own citizens.

Disfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white. The land that disfranchises its citizens and calls itself a democracy lies and knows it lies.” (p. 14, column 1)

Source note: Du Bois was a co-founder and the first editor of The Crisis magazine.

Source link: The Crisis, Vols. 15-18 (1919) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4ETAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA14&dq=Disfranchisement+is+the+deliberate+theft+and+robbery+of+the+only+protection+of+poor

Extended excerpt [Chapter XII: ‘Of Alexander Crummell.’ Non-fiction. Crummell was an educator and theologian who overcame race barriers to become a leader in the Episcopal church. See “Source Link” tabs for links to more information on his life and influence on W.E.B. DuBois.]:

“The more I met Alexander Crummell, the more I felt how much that world was losing which knew so little of him. In another age he might have sat among the elders of the land in purple-bordered toga; in another country mothers might have sung him to the cradles.

He did his work, – he did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name to-day, in this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden with no incense of memory or emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, – all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, – who is good? not that men are ignorant, – what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.” (pp. 226-227)

Source link [Featured source]: The Souls of Black Folk (1903|1903 A.C. McClurg 2nd ed.) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/cu31924024920492/page/n241

Source link [More on Alexander Crummell]: “Crummell, Alexander (1819-1898)” | BlackPast.org – Brief biography by Errin Jackson: https://blackpast.org/aah/crummell-alexander-1819-1898

Re-quote notes: The Du Bois quote in College Bred Negro was repeated by a few other sources, but his idea really gained traction when Du Bois repeated it in his essay “The Talented Tenth” – a paper published in late 1903 as part of The Negro Problem, an anthology of articles from prominent African Americans:

“I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men…” (pp. 62-62)

[Re-quote source: W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth” (1903) in The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representatives American Negroes of To-Day, New York: James Pott & Co., 1903, p. 63; online via Wellesley College & Internet Archive, archive.org]

Extended excerpt [Editorial remarks in a report summary]: “As the editor has had occasion to say before:

“In a scheme such as I have outlined, providing the rudiments of an education for all, industrial training for the many, and a college course for the talented few, I fail to see anything contradictory or antagonistic. I yield to no one in advocacy of the recently popularized notion of Negro industrial training, nor in admiration for the earnest men who emphasize it. At the same time, I insist that its widest realization will but increase the demand for college-bred men – for thinkers to guide the workers. Indeed, all who are working for the uplifting of the American Negro have little need of disagreement if they but remember this fundamental and unchangeable truth: the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters – it is to make carpenters men.” (p. 114)

Source link [Featured source]: The College-Bred Negro (May 1900) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=BdE8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA114&dq=object+of+all+true+education+is+not+to+make+men+carpenters

Source link [Du Bois re-quote, 1903]: “The Talented Tenth,” in The Negro Problem (1903) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/negroproblemseri00wash/page/62

Extended excerpt [Non-fiction]: “In religion as in democracy, the Negro has been a peculiar test of white profession. The American church, both Catholic and Protestant, has been kept from any temptation to over-righteousness and empty formalism by the fact that just as Democracy in America was tested by the Negro, so American religion has always been tested by slavery and color prejudice. It has kept before America’s truer souls the spirit of meekness and self abasement, it has compelled American religion again and again to search its heart and cry “I have sinned’” and until the day comes when color caste falls before reason and economic opportunity the black American will stand as the last and terrible test of the ethics of Jesus Christ.

Beyond this the black man has brought to American a sense of meekness and humility which America never has recognized and perhaps never will. If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.” (pp. 338-339)

Source link: The Gift of Black Folk (1924) online via HathiTrust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89058593310;view=1up;seq=353

“]

Extended excerpt [Essay on the education of African Americans in the United States]:

“Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work – it must teach Life.” (pp. 74-75)

Source link: “The Talented Tenth,” in The Negro Problem (1903) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/negroproblemseri00wash/page/74

Extended excerpt [Non-fiction – Biography and contemporary reflection on life, work, and legacy of American abolitionist John Brown.]:

“This is the situation to-day. Has John Brown no message – no legacy, then, to the twentieth century? He has and it is this great word: the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. The price of repressing the world’s darker races is shown in a moral retrogression and an economic waster unparalleled since the age of the African slave-trade. What would be the cost of liberty? What would be the cost of giving the great stocks of mankind every reasonable help and incentive to self-development – opening the avenues of opportunity freely, spreading knowledge, suppressing war and cheating, and treating men and women as equals the world over whenever and wherever they attain equality? It would cost something. It would cost something in pride and prejudice, for eventually many a white man would be blacking black men’s boots; but this cost we may ignore – its greatest cost would be the new problems of racial intercourse and intermarriage which would come to the front.” (pp. 383-384)

Source note: John Brown (1800-1859) was a militant abolitionist who attempted to spark a slave uprising and unite escaped slabs by staging a raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 1859. While Brown’s raid was unsuccessful – and he was tried & executed for treason in 1858 –  his actions and subsequent death are generally recognized as one of the catalysts to the American Civil War. Please see our “Source Links” tab for a link to more information on John Brown and his attack on Harpers Ferry.

Source link [Featured source]: John Brown (1909) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=Sg-oAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA383&dq=The+cost+of+liberty+is+less+than+the+price+of+repression

Source link [Additional information – John Brown]: “John Brown’s Day of Reckoning” (October 2009) Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/john-browns-day-of-reckoning-139165084/

Extended excerpt [Du Bois served as “Corresponding Secretary of the Conference” and editor of the report. The full paragraph is cited.]:

“The ideals of education, whether men are taught to teach or plow, to weave or to write, must not be allowed to sink into sordid utilitarianism. Education must keep broad ideals before it, and never forget that it is dealing with Souls and not with Dollars.” (p. 81)

Source note: Later editions of the Du Bois report were also titled simply The Negro Artisan or The Negro Artisan: A Social Study.

The cited item comes from Du Bois summary of the conference information. It appears as a sub-heading number three (“There is undue insistence on the “practical.”) under item fourteen (“Five Faults of Industrial Schools.”).

Source link: The Negro Artisan: Report of a Social Study Made Under the Direction of Atlanta University… (27 May 1902) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/negroartisanrepo00dubo/page/80

Extended excerpt [Essay]:

“Granted then the negroes were to some extent venal but to a much larger extent ignorant and deceived, the question is: did they show any signs of a disposition to learn better things? The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience. This is precisely what the negro voters showed indubitable signs of doing. First, they strove for schools to abolish ignorance, and, second, a large and growing number of them revolted against the carnival of extravagance and stealing that marred the beginning of Reconstruction, and joined with the best elements to institute reform; and the greatest stigma on the white South is not that it opposed negro suffrage and resented theft and incompetence, but that when it saw the reform movement growing and even in some cases triumphing, and a larger and larger number of black voters learning to vote for honesty and ability, it still preferred a Reign of Terror to a campaign of education, and disfranchised negroes instead of punishing rascals.” (pp. 792-793)

Source note: Du Bois’ American Historical Association paper was also reprinted in his book The Negro in 1915.

Source link: The American Historical Review (July 1910 | 1910 Vol. XV Macmillan ed.) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=_rwSJl5ITFcC&pg=PA792&dq=Du+Bois+%2B+The+theory+of+democratic+government+is+not+that+the+will+of+the+people+is+always+right

Extended excerpt [Du Bois, as editor of The Crisis, citing from his own address to Pan-African conference in London]:

“In 1900 at the time of the Paris Exposition there was called on January 23, 24 and 25 a Pan-African Conference in Westminster Hall, London. This conference said in its address to the world:

“In the metropolis of the modern world, in this the closing year of the nineteenth century, there has been assembled a congress of men and women of African blood, to deliberate solemnly upon the present situation and outlook of the darker races of mankind.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line, the question as to how far differences of race – which show themselves chiefly in the colour of the skin and the texture of the hair, are going to be made, hereafter the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.” (p. 198)

Source link: The Crisis (March 1921 | Vol. 21-22) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=FgtFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA198&dq=The+problem+of+the+twentieth+century+is+the+problem+of+the+color+line,+the+question+as+to+how+far+differences

Extended excerpt: “We live in a day when in spite of the brilliant accomplishments of a remarkable century, there is current much flippant criticism of scientific work; when the truth-seeker is too often pictured as devoid of human sympathy, and careless of human ideals. We are still prone in spite of all our culture to sneer at the heroism of the laboratory while we cheer the swagger of street broil. At such a time true lovers of humanity can only hold higher the pure ideals of science, and continue to insist that if we would solve a problem we must study it, and that there is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.”

Source link: Annals of the American Academy (Jan. 1898 – June 1898) online via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/annalsaa11ameruoft#page/n13/mode/2up/search/coward+on+earth

Extended excerpt [Report preface – first lines]:

“There is only one sure basis of social reform and that is Truth – a careful detailed knowledge of the essential facts of each social problem. Without this there is no logical starting place for reform and uplift. Social difficulties may be clear and we may inveigh against them, but the causes proximate and remote are seldom clear to the casual observer and usually are quite hidden from the man who suffers from, or is sensitive to, the results of the snarl.” (p. 5)

Source link: Morals and Manners Among Negro Americans [in volume, title not clear] (c. 1914) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=kmFHAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA5&lpg=RA3-PA5&dq=There+is+only+one+sure+basis+of+social+reform+and+that+is+Truth

Extended excerpt [Commencement speech at Du Bois’ alma mater]:

“Thus Orgne questioned Life on his Commencement morning, in the full springtide of his day. And this is the Revelation and the answer that came to Saint Orgne the Damned as he came to be called, as he stood on his Mount of Transfiguration, looking full at his life as it is and not as it might be or haply as he would have it.

In very truth, thou art damned, and may not escape by vain imagining nor fruitless repining. When a man faces evil, he does not call it good, nor evade it; he meets it breast forward, with no whimper of regret nor fear of foe.”

“Blessed is he that reads and they that hear the words of this prophecy for the time is at hand. Grace be unto you and peace, from him which was and which is and is to come and from the seven spirits which are before his throne.”

Source note: In the conclusion of his speech, Du Bois states that “This then is the revelation of Saint Orgne the Damned, as given me by his hand…” (p. 16) In other words….“Saint Orgne” is a fictional character.

Source link: Library – The Revelation of Saint Orgne the Damned (8 June 1938|1939) online via Credo, University of Massachusetts Library: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312-b285-i144/#page/4/mode/1up

Misattribution notes:

American journalist Vann R. Newkirk posted the quoted line shortly after it was announced that there would be no indictment of George Zimmerman, a man who shot and killed unarmed high school student Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.

At the time of his initial post, Newkirk’s Twitter account handle, @fivefifths, included the name “W.E.B.B.I.E. DuBois” in his heading. Within a day, people sharing the comment were misattributing the Newkirk’s original words to American author, orator, and educator W.E.B. Du Bois.

See also: “That ‘A System Cannot Fail…’ Quote? It’s Not From W.E.B. DuBois” (25 November 2014) Lily Rothman, TIME magazine [subscription service] time.com

Extended excerpt [None. Quote was a single-line post on the social media account, Twitter]:

“A system cannot fail those it was never built to protect.”

Source link [Featured source]: Twitter post from Vann Newkirk, @fivefifths (13 July 2013) online via Twitter: https://twitter.com/fivefifths/status/356233362626711552?lang=en

Source link [Misattribution notes – Lily Rothman article]: “That ‘A System Cannot Fail’ Quote? It’s Not From W.E.B. DuBois” (25 November 2014) online via TIME [subscription service]: http://time.com/3604241/w-e-b-dubois-quote-ferguson/