W.E.B. DuBois on class, race, and the obligations of privileged black folks

"so long as American labor is more conscious of color and race than it is of the fundamental economic needs of the whole laboring class, just so long the development of labor solidarity is impossible." —W.E.B. DuBois, "The Nucleus of Class Consciousness"

"Some years ago I used the phrase "The Talented Tenth," meaning leadership of the Negro race in America by a trained few. … Very gradually as the philosophy of Karl Marx and many of his successors seeped into my understanding, I tried to apply...