In November 2020, friends of the W. Eastward. B. Du Bois Middle shared a series of quotes by Du Bois that resonate in our own time.

The quotes beneath were chosen by the 2022 cohort of Du Bois Center graduate and post-doctoral fellows.

Du Bois Center Fellows Favorite Du Bois Quotes

Group portrait of Du Bois and friends and family at his 70th birthday celebration at Atlanta University, 1938.

"Between me and the other world there is e'er an unasked question: unasked past some through feelings of delicacy; past others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, centre me curiously or compassionately, and and so, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to exist a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored homo in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do non these Southern outrages make your claret boil? At these I smiling, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may inquire. To the existent question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word."

W. E. B. Du Boisin The Souls of Black Folk(1903)
Chosen by Jay Cephas, Banana Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at Northeastern University and 2022 Du Bois Heart Post-Doctoral Swain

"Yous are not and yet you are: your thoughts, your deeds, above all your dreams still alive."

W. E. B. Du Bois in The Autobiography of W. Eastward. B. Du Bois(1968)
Chosen by Freeden Blume Oeur, Associate Professor of Sociology and Instruction at Tufts University and 2022 Du Bois Middle Postal service-Doctoral Fellow

"Nosotros say easily, for instance, 'The ignorant ought not to vote.' We would say, 'No civilized land should have citizens too ignorant to participate in authorities,' and this argument is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized which has citizens too ignorant to assist rule it."

West. East. B. Du Bois in Of the Ruling of Men (1920)
Called by Adam Dahl, Assistant Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Eye Post-Doctoral Fellow

"The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery."

West. E. B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Chosen past Alexandria Russell, Mail service-Doctoral Fellow in the Section of History at Rutgers Academy and 2022 Du Bois Center Mail-Doctoral Fellow
Portrait taken by writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten.

"Children learn more from what you are than what you teach."

W. E. B. Du Bois
Chosen by Victoria I. Rizo Lenshyn, German and Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Center Mail-Doctoral Fellow

"Reader of dead words who would live deeds, this is the flowering of my logic: I dream of a world of infinitive and valuable variety; non in the laws of gravity or atomic weights, but in human variety in height and weight, color and skin, pilus and nose and lip. But more especially and far above and beyond this, is a realm of true freedom: in thought and dream, fantasy and imagination; in gift, aptitude, and genius—all possible manner of difference, topped with freedom of soul to do and be, and freedom of thought to requite to a globe and build into it, all wealth of inborn individuality. Each attempt to stop this freedom of being is a blow at commonwealth—that existent democracy which is reservoir and opportunity . . . There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we reach all, even Peace."

W. E. B. Du Bois in The Globe and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (Oxford University Press, 2007 [1947]), 165.
Chosen by Phillip Sinitiere, Professor of History at the Higher of Biblical Studies, Houston, TX and 2022 Du Bois Heart Mail service-Doctoral Fellow

"Perhaps even college than strength and art loom human being sympathy and sacrifice as characteristic of Negro womanhood"

W. Eastward. B. Du Bois in The Damnation of Women (1920)
Chosen by Sarah Holm Tanzi, 2022 Du Bois Heart Mail service-Doctoral Fellow

 Viewing anniversary parade from balcony of aboriginal Royal Palace in Peking, Oct. 1, 1962.

"Nations reel and stagger on their manner; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they practise great and beautiful things. And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far every bit the truth is ascertainable?"

Due west. E. B. Du Boisin Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Chosen by Eliza Araújo, Visiting Scholar at UMass AFROAm Department, Ph.D educatee at Universidade Federal da Paraíba, and 2022 Du Bois Middle Graduate Swain

"Merely what of Black women?… I virtually sincerely incertitude if any other race of women could have brought its fineness upwards through so devilish a fire."

W. Due east. B. Du Bois
Chosen by Venus Green, Doctoral student in Folklore at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Heart Graduate Fellow

"Beneath the Veil lay right and incorrect, vengeance and honey, and sometimes throwing bated the veil, a soul of sweet Beauty and Truth stood revealed."

W. E. B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Chosen by Aaron Yates, Doctoral pupil in Sociology at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Eye Graduate Fellow

"I believe in pride of race and lineage and self; in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves."

W. Eastward. B. Du Bois
Chosen by Samantha Davis, Doctoral student in Political Science at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Center Graduate Young man

Portrait of W. East. B. Du Bois seated in study belongings newspaper.

"The true significance of slavery in the United States to the whole social evolution of America lay in the ultimate relation of slaves to republic. What were to be the limits of democratic control in the United States? If all labor, black every bit well every bit white, became free – were given schools and the right to vote – what control could or should exist set up to the power and action of these laborers? Was the rule of the mass of Americans to be unlimited, and the right to dominion extended to all men regardless of race and color, or if not, what ability of dictatorship and command; and how would holding and privilege be protected? This was the nifty and primary question which was in the minds of the men who wrote the Constitution of the United States and continued in the minds of thinkers down through the slavery controversy. It still remains with the earth every bit the trouble of democracy expands and touches all races and nations."

Westward. E. B. Du Boisin Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Chosen past Mike Jirik, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at UMass and 2022 Du Bois Centre Graduate Fellow

Dominion-post-obit, legal precedence, and political consistency are not more important than right, justice and evidently common-sense.

W. E. B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction (1935)

"And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, –all men know something of poverty; non that men are wicked, –who is adept? not that men are ignorant, –what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so trivial of men."

Due west. Due east. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk(1903)
Chosen past Stacie Klinowski, Doctoral pupil in the English language Department at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Heart Graduate Boyfriend

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more user-friendly season. It is today that our best work tin can exist done and non some future solar day or future year."

W. Due east. B. Du Bois
Chosen by Heather Brinn, Ph.D Candidate in the History Department at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Center Graduate Beau

W. E. B. Du Bois in his office belongings the starting time effect of The Crisis.

"The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's demand of that piece of work. With this, life is heaven, or equally near heaven as y'all can become."

Due west. E. B. Du Bois
Chosen past Khaleelah Harris, Master of Divinity student at Yale Divinity School and 2022 Du Bois Center Graduate Swain

"Only one thing is sure and that is the fact that since the fifteenth century these ancestors of mine and their other descendants accept had a mutual history; have suffered a common disaster and take one long retentiveness. The bodily ties of heritage betwixt the individuals of this group, vary with the ancestors that they have in common and many others: Europeans and Semites, mayhap Mongolians, certainly American Indians. But the concrete bond is to the lowest degree and the bluecoat of colour relatively unimportant save every bit a badge; the existent essence of this kinship is its social heritage of slavery; the bigotry and insult; and this heritage binds together not simply the children of Africa, but extends through xanthous Asia and into the Southward Seas. It is this unity that draws me to Africa."

West. E. B. Du Bois in Dusk of Dawn(1940)
Chosen by Swati Birla, Historical Sociologist at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Center Graduate Young man

"Crucified on the vast wheel of time, I flew circular and round with the Zeitgeist, waving my pen and lifting faint voices to explain, expound and exhort; to see, foresee and prophesy, to the few who could or would mind."

W. E. B. Du Bois
Called by Jingjing Zhang, Visiting Scholar in W.Due east.B Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst and 2022 Du Bois Center Graduate Swain