Political Quotes

W.E.B. Du Bois: The poor land groans with its birth-pains, and brings forth scarcely a hundred pounds of cotton to the acre, where fifty…

On the recordJanuary 1, 1903
The poor land groans with its birth-pains, and brings forth scarcely a hundred pounds of cotton to the acre, where fifty years ago it yielded eight times as much.
Said by
W.E.B. Du Bois

Editor's note · Context

Du Bois uses personification to describe the severe degradation of the land and its drastically reduced agricultural productivity over time.

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