He bent to all the gibes and prejudices, to all hatred and discrimination, with that rare courtesy which is the armor of pure souls.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “He bent to all the gibes and prejudices, to all hatred and discrimination, with that rare courtesy which is the armor of…”
Editor's note · Context
From his seminal work, this passage describes the profound moral strength found in responding to hatred and discrimination with unwavering courtesy.
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A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him.
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.