William Edward Burghardt Du Bois citáty

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, často vystupující pod zkratkou svých křestních jmen W. E. B. Du Bois byl americko-ghanský sociolog, historik, spisovatel, politický aktivista a bojovník proti rasismu a za práva černošské menšiny v USA. Byl prvním černošským doktorem na Harvardově univerzitě, posléze se stal profesorem na černošské univerzitě v Atlantě. Roku 1905 spoluzakládal známé Niagarské hnutí a roku 1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, jehož časopis The Crisis posléze vedl. K jeho nejznámějším knihám patří sbírka politických esejů The Souls of Black Folk z roku 1903 a odborná historická práce Black Reconstruction in America z roku 1935. Hlásil se k socialismu, věřil totiž, že rasismus je produktem kapitalismu. Byl též příznivcem panafrického hnutí a vyzýval černošské Američany k návratu do Afriky, což sám též učinil – zemřel v Ghaně, kam ho pozval první ghanský prezident Kwame Nkrumah, s nímž se poznal na panafrickém kongresu v Manchesteru roku 1945. V 50. letech byl znám též jako bojovník za jaderné odzbrojení. V éře mccarthismu čelil perzekucím, roku 1951 mu byl zabaven pas, vrácen mu byl až roku 1960, poté ihned odjel do Ghany. Roku 1963 mu USA odmítly pas obnovit, a tak přijal ghanské občanství. Zemřel den před historickým Pochodem na Washington za práci a svobodu, na známém shromáždění před Lincolnovým památníkem za něj drželo 200 000 aktivistů minutu ticha. Wikipedia  

✵ 23. únor 1868 – 27. srpen 1963   •   Další jména ویلیام دوبوآ
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois foto
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: 63   citátů 1   lajk

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois citáty a výroky

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: Citáty anglicky

“The most magnificent drama in the last thousand years of human history is the transportation of ten million human beings out of the dark beauty of their mother continent into the new-found Eldorado of the West.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha Black Reconstruction

Zdroj: Black Reconstruction in America (1935), p. 727
Kontext: The most magnificent drama in the last thousand years of human history is the transportation of ten million human beings out of the dark beauty of their mother continent into the new-found Eldorado of the West. They descended into Hell; and in the third century they arose from the dead, in the finest effort to achieve democracy for the working millions which this world had ever seen. It was a tragedy that beggared the Greek; it was an upheaval of humanity like the Reformation and the French Revolution. Yet we are blind and led by the blind. We discern in it no part of our labor movement; no part of our industrial triumph; no part of our religious experience. Before the dumb eyes of ten generations of ten million children, it is made mockery of and spit upon; a degradation of the eternal mother; a sneer at human effort; with aspiration and art deliberately and elaborately distorted. And why? Because in a day when the human mind aspired to a science of human action, a history and psychology of the mighty effort of the mightiest century, we fell under the leadership of those who would compromise with truth in the past in order to make peace in the present and guide policy in the future.

“Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.”

Last message to the world (written 1957); read at his funeral (1963)

“The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha The Souls of Black Folk

Zdroj: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. V: Of the Wings of Atalanta

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

"Niagara Movement Speech" (1905) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/niagara-movement-speech/ <!--originally a portion of this was cited here to an Address to the Nation speech at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (16 August 1906); published in the New York Times on (20 August 1906) — but that does not correspond with the info at the link. -->
Kontext: The school system in the country districts of the South is a disgrace and in few towns and cities are Negro schools what they ought to be. We want the national government to step in and wipe out illiteracy in the South. Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
And when we call for education we mean real education. We believe in work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education. Education is the development of power and ideal. We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire.
These are some of the chief things which we want. How shall we get them? By voting where we may vote, by persistent, unceasing agitation; by hammering at the truth, by sacrifice and work.
We do not believe in violence, neither in the despised violence of the raid nor the lauded violence of the soldier, nor the barbarous violence of the mob, but we do believe in John Brown, in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown’s martyrdom we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.
Our enemies, triumphant for the present, are fighting the stars in their courses. Justice and humanity must prevail.

“There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha Dusk of Dawn

The Study of the Negro Problems, paragraph 50, in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. XI (January 1898) http://www.webdubois.org/dbStudyofnprob.html
Zdroj: Dusk of Dawn

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha John Brown

John Brown: A Biography (1909): "The Legacy of John Brown"

“One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strenth alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha The Souls of Black Folk

Zdroj: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. I: Of Our Spiritual Strivings
Kontext: After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, — a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.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.

“How shall Integrity face Oppression?”

The Ordeal of Mansart (1957) [Kraus-Thomson, 1976, ], p. 275
Kontext: How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.

“We do not believe in violence, neither in the despised violence of the raid nor the lauded violence of the soldier, nor the barbarous violence of the mob, but we do believe in John Brown, in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown’s martyrdom we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.”

"Niagara Movement Speech" (1905) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/niagara-movement-speech/ <!--originally a portion of this was cited here to an Address to the Nation speech at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (16 August 1906); published in the New York Times on (20 August 1906) — but that does not correspond with the info at the link. -->
Kontext: The school system in the country districts of the South is a disgrace and in few towns and cities are Negro schools what they ought to be. We want the national government to step in and wipe out illiteracy in the South. Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
And when we call for education we mean real education. We believe in work. We ourselves are workers, but work is not necessarily education. Education is the development of power and ideal. We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other people. They have a right to know, to think, to aspire.
These are some of the chief things which we want. How shall we get them? By voting where we may vote, by persistent, unceasing agitation; by hammering at the truth, by sacrifice and work.
We do not believe in violence, neither in the despised violence of the raid nor the lauded violence of the soldier, nor the barbarous violence of the mob, but we do believe in John Brown, in that incarnate spirit of justice, that hatred of a lie, that willingness to sacrifice money, reputation, and life itself on the altar of right. And here on the scene of John Brown’s martyrdom we reconsecrate ourselves, our honor, our property to the final emancipation of the race which John Brown died to make free.
Our enemies, triumphant for the present, are fighting the stars in their courses. Justice and humanity must prevail.

“To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha The Souls of Black Folk

Zdroj: The Souls of Black Folk

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha The Souls of Black Folk

Zdroj: To the Nations of the World, address to Pan-African conference, London (1900). These words are also found in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), ch. II: Of the Dawn of Freedom

“Liberty trains for liberty. Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.”

W.E.B. Du Bois kniha John Brown

John Brown: A Biography (1909): "The Legacy of John Brown"