Plain it is to us that what the world seeks through desert and wild we have within our threshold,—a stalwart laboring force, suited to the semi-tropics; if, deaf to the voice of the Zeitgeist, we refuse to use and develop these men, we risk poverty and loss.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “Plain it is to us that what the world seeks through desert and wild we have within our threshold,—a stalwart laboring…”
Editor's note · Context
Arguing for the recognition and development of Black labor, this passage warns of the economic consequences of ignoring this valuable resource.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku-Klux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for…
All this segregation by color is largely independent of that natural clustering by social grades common to all communities.
But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the…