On the record
And yet the mothers and fathers and the men and women of my race must often pause and ask: Is it worth while?
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois
Source
gutenberg.orgW.E.B. Du Bois: “And yet the mothers and fathers and the men and women of my race must often pause and ask: Is it worth while?”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois poses a poignant question about the value of struggle and sacrifice for his community.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Jan 1, 1903
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.
Jan 1, 1903
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…
Jan 1, 1903
Many of the worst characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in this period of the slave’s ethical growth.
Jan 1, 1903
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.