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Education and Economic Prosperity and Black Progress

W.E.B. Du Bois was a black man and civil rights leader who wrote much about the black experience. In his essay "Of Training of Black Men," Du Bois discusses the education and economic prosperity of the black man, emphasizing three streams of thought.

The first stream of thought is the unity of all men. Du Bois points out that "the multiplying of human wants in culture-lands calls for the world-wide cooperation of men in satisfying them," creating a need for "a new human unity" that "pull[s] the ends of the earth nearer, and all men, black, yellow, and white." The second stream of thought is that the Negro is "somewhere between men and cattle," a "clownish, simple creature" that might someday become a man (Du Bois). Du Bois's sarcasm in describing this perspective is palpable, and he adds that the chances of the Negro breaking through to become men are slim because "we build about them walls so high, and hang between them and the light a veil so thick, that they shall not even think of breaking through." The third stream of thought is that the black men wonder if "the World is right and we are less than men?" (Du Bois).

Du Bois points out that all three streams of thought meet their answer in education. He asserts that they can be met "by the breadth and broadening of human reason, by catholicity of taste and culture" (Du Bois). Du Bois states categorically, "And so, in this great question of reconciling three vast and partially contradictory streams of thought, the one panacea of Education leaps to the lips of all:-such human training as will best use the labor of all men without enslaving or brutalizing." Education, he points out, liberates men from the shackles that society has put on them. For the black man, education means no longer being treated like a "tertium quid"-a third order of beings somewhere between cattle and men-and being able to break the bonds of prejudice that "deafen us to th

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Education and Economic Prosperity and Black Progress. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 15:46, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/2000767.html