W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

Quotes
"The negro is a sort of seventh son, born without a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world."

"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."

"one ever feels his twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings."

"To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars it he very bottom of hardships."

"The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line."

--Sorrow Songs: "the Negro folk-song--the rhythmic cry of the slave--stands today not simply as the sole American music, but the most beautiful expression of human experience this side of the seas."

"the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the negro people."

--America: "vigor and ingenuity rather than beauty"

"the voice of exile" "eloquent omissions and silences" *****