Jan 1, 1903
They came out of the South unknown to me, one by one, and yet at once I knew them as of me and of mine.
W.E.B. Du Bois
The Public Record
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. He completed graduate work at Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He was a professor at Atlanta University and over the course of his life wrote many books and articles. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra on August 27, 1963.
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Jan 1, 1903
Then in after years when I came to Nashville I saw the great temple builded of these songs towering over the pale city.
Jan 1, 1903
To me Jubilee Hall seemed ever made of the songs themselves, and its bricks were red with the blood and dust of toil.
Jan 1, 1903
Out of them rose for me morning, noon, and night, bursts of wonderful melody, full of the voices of my brothers and sisters, full of the voices of the past.
Jan 1, 1903
Little of beauty has America given the world save the rude grandeur God himself stamped on her bosom; the human spirit in this new world has expressed itself in vigor and ingenuity rather than in beauty.
Jan 1, 1903
And so by fateful chance the Negro folk-song—the rhythmic cry of the slave—stands to-day not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas.
Jan 1, 1903
It has been neglected, it has been, and is, half despised, and above all it has been persistently mistaken and misunderstood; but notwithstanding, it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of…
Jan 1, 1903
Some, like “Near the lake where drooped the willow,” passed into current airs and their source was forgotten; others were caricatured on the “minstrel” stage and their memory died away.
Can we teach Revolution to the inexperienced in hope that they may discern progress?
For this, their promise, and for their hard past, I honor the women of my race.
Perhaps even higher than strength and art loom human sympathy and sacrifice as characteristic of Negro womanhood.
Her determination was founded on unwavering faith in ultimate good.