5/5/12

Black Reconstruction--W.E.B. Du Bois

"Here is the real modern labor problem.  Here is the kernel of the problem of Religion and Democracy, of Humanitty.  Words and futile gestures avail nothing.  Out of the exploitation of the dark proletariat comes the Surplus Value filched from human beasts which, in cultured lands, the Machine and harnessed Power veil and conceal.  The emancipation of man is the emancipation of labor and the emancipation of labor is the freeing of that basic majority of workers who are yellow, brown and black." (16)

W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of hte Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880.  Atheneum (1935) 1973