Political Quotes

W.E.B. Du Bois: Even in the matter of enforcing its own laws and co-operating with the civilized world, a lethargy seized the country…

On the record
Even in the matter of enforcing its own laws and co-operating with the civilized world, a lethargy seized the country, and it did not awake until slavery was about to destroy it.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois

Editor's note · Context

Du Bois critiques the nation's lethargy in enforcing laws against slavery until it became a dire threat.

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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…

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They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at…

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And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe.

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