Political Quotes

W.E.B. Du Bois: “We know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin.”

On the record
We know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois

Editor's note · Context

This quote starkly illustrates the systemic racism in America that undermines the abilities of Black individuals.

Share

More from W.E.B. Du Bois

Jan 1, 1903

So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1903

If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1903

Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1903

Would America have been America without her Negro people?

gutenberg.org