Charles W. Chesnutt Quote

Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, and oftentimes fall back into slavery again because of too great wealth, and the resulting luxury and carelessness of civic virtues.


From The Disenfranchisement of the Negro (1903). From The Negro Problem (1903), edited by Booker T. Washington


Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, ...

Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, ...

Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, ...

Nations do not first become rich and learned and then free, but the lesson of history has been that they first become free and then rich and learned, ...