“The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty and if she is not, the mob pouts and asks querulously, "What else are women for?”

—W. E. B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil

“Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”

W.E.B. Du BoisSpeech at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, August 1906  - The Quotations Page

“It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule.”

—W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America

“Analyzing Europe’s extensive colonization of Africa, Du Bois demonstrated that extreme poverty and degradation in the African colonies was “a main cause of wealth and luxury in Europe. The results of this poverty were disease, ignorance, and crime. Yet these had to be represented as natural characteristics of backward peoples.” The unjust and brutal exploitation of African labor and land had long been downplayed in most historical accounts of European affluence. By bringing the unjust impoverishment of Africa back into the picture, Du Bois provided evidence that this impoverishment was directly and centrally linked to European prosperity and affluence. A similar connection needs to be made between the immiseration and impoverishment of African Americans and the enrichment and prosperity of European Americans.”

—Joe Feagin
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