If these things are so, how foolish to ask what is the best education for one or seven or sixty million souls! shall we teach them trades, or train them in liberal arts?
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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But they will guide her over and beyond them, and leave her kneeling in the Sanctuary of Truth and Freedom and broad Humanity, virgin and undefiled.
They will not guide her flying feet away from the cotton and gold; for—ah, thoughtful Hippomenes!—do not the apples lie in the very Way of Life?
Such an institution the South of to-day sorely needs.
And with all this change, so curiously parallel to that of the Other-world, goes too the same inevitable change in ideals.
Into their places are pushing the farmers and gardeners, the well-paid porters and artisans, the business-men,—all those with property and money.
Not only is this true in the world which Atlanta typifies, but it is threatening to be true of a world beneath and beyond that world,—the Black World beyond the Veil.
Golden apples are beautiful—I remember the lawless days of boyhood, when orchards in crimson and gold tempted me over fence and field—and, too, the merchant who has dethroned the planter is no despicable parvenu.
How fleet must Atalanta be if she will not be tempted by gold to profane the Sanctuary!
How heavy a journey for weary feet! what wings must Atalanta have to flit over all this hollow and hill, through sour wood and sullen water, and by the red waste of sun-baked clay!
But half was spoken; The slave’s chains and the master’s Alike are broken; The one curse of the races Held both in tether; They are rising—all are rising— The black and white together.
Indeed, the gaunt father who toiled night and day would scarcely be happy out of debt, being so used to it.