African Americans' path to freedom - Education
In the past learning how to read and write was so dangerous it could cost people their life. If the attitude that education is dangerous is not examined and parents pass this attitudes down to their children - our young may not grasp on an emotional level that education is no longer dangerous.
Today it is not safer to be extra strong and menacing instead of studious and educated. We can learn from history and find out where some of the prevailing attitudes come from. It is up us to use the knowledge we have available today. We can change our lives for the better. Education today pays - in the olden days it could be a death certificate. Today ignorance may lead to crime and thus to a death certificate.
W.E.B. Dubois
“All men cannot go to college but some men must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold.” by W.E.B. DuBois
W.E.B. DuBois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. At that time Great Barrington had perhaps 25, but not more than 50, Black people out of a population of about 5,000. Consequently, there were little signs of overt racism there. Nevertheless, its venom was distributed through a constant barrage of suggestive innuendoes and vindictive attitudes of its residents. This mutated the personality of young William from good natured and outgoing to sullen and withdrawn. This was later reinforced and strengthened by inner withdrawals in the face of real discriminations. His demeanor of introspection haunted him throughout his life. Next
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