It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. Maya Angelou
About This Quote

W.E.B. Dubois was an American sociologist, teacher, historian, author, poet, and civil rights activist. He was born in the United States to a family of slaves. Dubois helped lead the fight against segregation in the United States during the latter part of the 19th century.

He was especially known for his work on black studies, which he defined as “the scientific study of the Negro". Dubois acknowledged that "the problem" for blacks was not so much economic as it was cultural. He worked to provide an intellectual foundation for African-American society within the context of its larger culture.

Source: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

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