The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing-a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. THe Middle Age regarded skin color with mild curiousity; and even up into the eighteenth century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, emotional conversion has discovered that it is white and by that token, wonderful!

More information about this quote

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "The Souls of White Folk." Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. Harcourt, Brace And Howe, 1920.

Current Citation

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "The Souls of White Folk." Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Oxford University Press, 2014.