The Fruit of the Tree (1913)

Let no one for a moment mistake that the present increased attack on the Negro along all lines is but the legitimate fruit of that long campaign for subserviency and surrender which a large party of Negroes have fathered now some twenty years. It is not necessary to question the motives of these men nor to deny that their insistence on thrift and saving has had its large and beneficent effect. But, on the other hand, only the blind and foolish can fail to see that a continued campaign in every nook and comer of this land, preaching to people white and colored, that the Negro is chiefly to blame for his condition, that he must not insist on his rights, that he should not take part in politics, that “Jim Crowism” is defensible and even advantageous, that he should humbly bow to the storm until the lordly white man grants him clemency—the fruit of this disgraceful doctrine is disfranchisement, segregation, lynching, and that last straw, the cowardly and unspeakable Patterson. Fellow Negroes, is it not time to be men? Is it not time to strike back when we are struck? Is it not high time to hold up our heads and clench our teeth and swear by the Eternal God we will NOT be slaves, and that no aider, abetter and teacher of slavery in any shape or guise can longer lead us?

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Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1913. “The Fruit of the Tree.” The Crisis. 6(5):232.