FROM W.E.B. DUBOIS TO ATLANTA!!!!

So I'm at work today reading The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois to pass the time. And I've come across this chapter called "Of the Wings of Atalanta"; that's not a typo by the way, as Atalanta is a woman from Greek mythology. Anywasy, the chapter is basically about the rise of the city of Atlanta, and its role in the racial climate of the time period.

As I read not-at-all deep into the chapter, I came across this quote; I thought it was fitting, so I'm going to pass it on. It's from DuBois and directed to the city of Atlanta:

Atlanta must not lead the South to dream of material prosperity as the touchstone of all success; already the fatal might of this idea is beginning to spread; it is replacing the finer type of Southerner with vulgar money-getters; it is burying the sweeter beauties of Southern life beneath pretence and ostentation. For every ill the panacea of Wealth has been urged, ---wealth to overthrow the remains of the slave feudalism; wealth to raise the "cracker" Third Estate; wealth to employ the black serfs, and the prospect of wealth to keep them working; wealth as the end and aim of politics, and as the legal tender for law and order; and, finally, instead of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, wealth as the ideal of the public school.

SO, to all you Southern cats stuck on that "let's get this money" mentality, I just wanted to let you know how real Black leaders feel about your way of thinking. Don't get mad; get educated and get right: the love of money is STILL the root of all evil.


*Note: To my white readers, my apologies for the use of term "cracker"; it's directly quoted from DuBois and it is not meant offensively. And I don't think HE meant it offensively either; it's a colloquial term of the time referring to impoverished Whites. Think Tom Sawyer and keep it in the literary context...