Du Bois marked a great stage in the history of Negro struggles when he said that Negroes could no longer accept the subordination which Booker T. Washington had preached.
After World War I the resentment of the working class against all that it had to suffer was directed more against Morgan, Wall Street and private capital than the government.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The working class's frustration post-World War I shifted focus from the government to the capitalist elite.
C. L. R. James reflects on the aftermath of World War I, suggesting that the hardships faced by the working class led to a growing resentment not towards the governmental authorities, but towards the financial elite represented by figures like J.P. Morgan and Wall Street. This quote highlights the societal divide and the intense anger toward capitalist structures that the working class felt during this tumultuous period, emphasizing the class struggle that took shape in the wake of the war's devastation.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion on economic inequality in a lecture on post-war history.
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I was a Labour Party man but I found myself to the left of the Labour party in Nelson, militant as that was. I came to London and in a few months I was a Trotskyist.
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