The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.W. E. B. Du Bois
One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body...W. E. B. Du Bois
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.W. E. B. Du Bois
Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question...W. E. B. Du Bois
I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas...W. E. B. Du Bois
Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century.W. E. B. Du Bois
I have been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner...W. E. B. Du Bois
Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get.W. E. B. Du Bois
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others.W. E. B. Du Bois
Why was his hair tinted with gold? An evil omen was golden hair in my life.W. E. B. Du Bois
Work, culture, liberty, --all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together.W. E. B. Du Bois
They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately...W. E. B. Du Bois
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.W. E. B. Du Bois
There are today no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes.W. E. B. Du Bois
To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.W. E. B. Du Bois