On the recordJanuary 1, 1903
The Negro church of to-day is the social centre of Negro life in the United States, and the most characteristic expression of African character.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois
Source
gutenberg.orgW.E.B. Du Bois: “The Negro church of to-day is the social centre of Negro life in the United States, and the most characteristic…”
Editor's note · Context
In "The Souls of Black Folk," this passage defines the Black church as the central institution for social life and cultural expression within the Black community.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Jan 1, 1903
Thus we have two great and hardly reconcilable streams of thought and ethical strivings; the danger of the one lies in anarchy, that of the other in hypocrisy.
Jan 1, 1903
I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.
Jan 1, 1903
To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes…
Jan 1, 1903
With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why…