W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes


Cannot the nation that has absorbed 10 million foreigners absorb 10 million Negro Americans?


Citations

W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1963, Educator & Author, Co-Founder of the NAACP, Quoted in Time, June 14, 1999

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At the time, the Southern segregationists were all Democrats and they blocked any Democratic attempt to pass any Civil Rights legislation. When he could not get a Civil Rights commitment from his own party, Powell turned to the Republicans and the President wrote this letter. In return, in November, Powell endorsed and supported Eisenhower instead of Stevenson, his own party’s nominee. Eisenhower could not get any legislation on Civil Rights as the Southern Democrats would always block it. When President Lyndon Johnson finally forced the 1963 Civil Rights Act through the Congress, the racist Southern Democrats cut a deal with Goldwater and the conservative Republicans, and switched parties. Since then the Civil Rights stance of the two parties reversed. The Democrats were thereafter pro Civil Rights and the Republicans, the party of Lincoln and Reconstruction, thereafter reversed their Civil Rights position and opposed progress in this area.


The Quakers were in the forefront of not only the abolition of slavery but of the integration of the races.


Arkansas Governor Faubus ordered the national guard to prevent Black students from integrating Central High School in Little Rock. President Eisenhower was a man of action and not rhetoric and his lack of firm public statements overlooked an opportunity to use the Presidential “bully pulpit” and exercise his moral leadership and authority. Armstrong was irate at Eisenhower for appearing to do nothing and say nothing. See {615852}. When Eisenhower did enforce the court order and used Federal troops, Armstrong sent him this congratulatory telegram. His reference to walking into the schools was in support of many who suggested that the best thing the President could have done was to personally take one of the Black students by the hand and walk into the school with him or her. With the mood of the Southern racists, such an act was potentially very risky for the President and it is not known whether of not the President and his staff ever considered such an act.


This was actually a very courageous statement for an American politician running for national office. As a result of the pressure of this statement President Franklin Roosevelt allowed Black enlistment in the Army Air Forces.


Jessie Helms was his young assistant who drafted this race baiting ad. There are two vicious but subtle aspects to this kind of attach ads. First, not that the ad does not address the problem of white men working along side of blacks. It only refers to wives and daughter. This interracial sex innuendo played on and increased the fear of whites that Blacks would commonly rape white women. The second nasty aspect of the ad is the specific attack on the opponent. Instead of saying that he favored desegregation, the phrase “mingling of the races” was used which implied that Graham was in favor of biracial intermarriage and children—again another sex innuendo. When integration of the workforce finally occurred in the South, there was no increase in Black men sexually assaulting white women. There has been a substantial increase in racial intermarriage however as racial bigotry has diminished in America.


This was an indirect slap at the Boy Scouts of America. At the time, racial segregation was legal and overtly practiced in the Southern States. The Boy Scouts could have been a great force for desegregation, but the leadership did not have that as a value for the organization. The Girl Scout leadership however saw the contradiction between segregation and the supposed values of America and their own organization. They were not only very active but very successful at desegregation at a time when they were atypical, and for most Americans, segregation was the norm.


African Americans have developed their own unique culture, customs and even language which has been shaped In large part by slavery and living under Jim Crow. Foreign Blacks find that culture very foreign, having never experienced it. They were shaped by colonialism and and are familiar with white, Western, Christian culture. In addition a large proportion of African and Caribbean immigrant have been highly educated, professional trained, and or middle class. Also, the media stereotyping of American Blacks not only biases whites, but aslo biases foreigners of all ethnicities. So Black immigratnts frequently perceive American Blacks to be lower class, prone to crime and violence, uneducated and different from the and certainly from their aspirations." African Americans have developed their own unique culture, customs and even language which has been shaped in large part by slavery and living under Jim Crow. Foreign Blacks find that culture very foreign, having never experienced it. They were shaped by colonialism and and are familiar with white, Western, Christian culture. In addition a large proportion of African and Caribbean immigrant have been highly educated, professional trained, and or middle class. Also, the media stereotyping of American Blacks not only biases whites, but aslo biases foreigners of all ethnicities. So Black immigratnts frequently perceive American Blacks to be lower class, prone to crime and violence, uneducated and different from them and certainly from their aspirations.


Following the lead of Arkansas, many southern schools were closed by order of the Governor when they received a court order to desegregate. Southern education was the poorest in the nation and the Southern students not able to go to school made the situation worse. Governor Almond changing his position realized that the cost of defying the Constitution and the courts was the ignorance of the students of the state, and became a major force persuading the state to integrate their schools. He is remembered for his leadership of desegregation and most people have forgotten that at the beginning of his term as governor he was as bad as most of the other Southern segregationist politicians.


This was a very courageous speech for the President to give. Senator Hubert Humphrey had proposed civil rights legislation. At the time most of the racial conservative members of Congress were Democrats and not Republicans as they would become after Civil Rights legislation actually passed in 1964. There was little possibility that the civil rights law would pass as the Southern Democrats could filibuster it in the Senate. None the less Truman supported the legislation and the principle of equal rights despite the fact that he was a Southerner and he knew he would lose the support of the conservative wing of his party.


Having endured centuries of near slavery and discrimination, 70,000 Irish people signed this petition urging American-Irish immigrants to understand the similar plight of African-Americans and to join together with abolitionists. Irish immigrants were nevertheless reluctant to join the abolition movement because the movement was often tied to anti-Catholicism and many feared that the emancipation of Blacks would increase competition for the low-paying jobs immigrants held.


The editor at the time was Dr. William H. Boyle but no one is sure whether he, the owner, or someone else, wrote the editorial. The quotation illustrated a fascinating twist of logic that was very commonly held at the time. “If God created men of different colors, he must have meant them to be separate.” It is fascinating that virtually no one at the time made a similar argument about hair or eye color, intellect or other differential traits of people. Although this logical fallacy waned in the latter part of the 20th century, there are some who still hold to it.


This painting depicted a young black girl walking to school surrounded by 4 U. S. Marshalls protecting her from the crowd of white racists trying to prevent her from attending an elementary school under court order. The vicious race hatred that school integration revealed was the national problem that was then surfacing. The graphic is the illustration that appeared in Look with that name.


W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Born: February 23, 1868
  • Died: August 27, 1963
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Socialist, Socialogist, Historian, Activist

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (in Berlin, Germany) and Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.