The American author W.E.B. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk in 1903. While a famous author, Du Bois was also a civil-rights activist, socialist, and historian. He is the first Black U.S. citizen to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard University (in 1895) and is one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909. Du Bois popularized the term The Talented Tenth, which was a leadership class of African-descended Americans who were expected to contribute to lower education and be liaisons to improve race relations.
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The Souls of Black Folk is a series of essays that speak on the culture of race relations in the United States. Du Bois wrote from his own experiences as a Black man, presenting a collection of narratives and situations that Black citizens would encounter during the period of Reconstruction. Du Bois hoped that readers would come away from reading The Souls of Black Folk with an understanding that the main problem with the 20th century is and will be the color line, or racial segregation, meaning the marginalization and delamination structurally imposed on the lives, educations, and careers of Black citizens in the United States.
Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk is a work of nonfiction; it is a collection of fourteen essays which feature some autobiographical elements pertaining to Du Bois' life. The essays, or chapters, are titled:
The text has made an incredible contribution to both Black and sociological studies and history. Du Bois introduced the terms double consciousness and the Veil in his work, both of which have advanced theoretical study. These two terms deal with constructing identity and the natures of lived experience versus perceived experience.
Below is a list of key quotes from The Souls of Black Folk followed by a brief explanation of their meaning.
The Souls of Black Folk seeks of analyze the years that followed the Civil War, known as the period of Reconstruction. Reconstruction was meant to help fully bring the South back into the Union; however, certain elements of infrastructure were put in place to ensure that the Black citizen in the United States was only able to achieve a moderate level of success. The purpose of illuminating what the color line is, which Du Bois defines as ''the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men,'' is to clarify it as the determinant for all social, political, and economic interactions and exchanges the Black man encounters in the United States.
It is impossible to say whether Du Bois' purpose in writing The Souls of Black Folk was achieved or if he was successful in his intentions, let alone knowing today exactly what his intentions were. Given the incredible impact this text has had on both Black and sociological studies, theoretically and historically, it is clear that a purpose was served. Conversely, the presence of the dynamics of race relations still prevalent in the 2020s also shows that the functioning of The Souls of Black Folk still has many purposes to serve.
The Veil is what it means to be a member of the Black culture that is inaccessible to white people. Du Bois seeks to present what it means to live behind the Veil, and what the experiences and happenings are of the Black man living during Reconstruction. Part of this experience involves the Freedman's Bureau of 1865, which was a government act to provide assistance, including plots of land, to newly freed Black people after the Civil War. This effort failed, however, due to a lack of funding and racial violence; no long-term protection or degree of racial equality was reached. The elements of what it now meant to be a free man in the United States are the experiences that occurred behind the Veil.
Double consciousness has to do with the idea of identity, specifically being forced to present two separate identities. For the Black citizen during Reconstruction, the primary identity is the Black identity. This is a unique and individual experience of identity. Oftentimes the term ''the black experience'' gets applied to this discussion, and that is wrong; there is no single universal black experience that can explain all identities of Black men and women. The trick with double consciousness, according to W.E.B. Du Bois, is that there is a second identity the Black citizen must contend with, which is predicated on the inheritance of slavery and the psychological confrontation of needing to view oneself in terms of the qualifiers of the dominant society, which is racist and white.
Du Bois uses elements of musical lyricism and song in his writing style. He opens each essay by pairing a few lines from a poem with the musical score of a Black spiritual, which is a type of religious folksong deeply enmeshed with the period of enslavement of Black people. The poem is generally from a European poet, indicating Du Bois' desire for a future that intersects the lives and experiences of Black and white citizens into a collaborative braid.
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More common literary elements used in W.E.B. Du Bois' writing style are allusion, personification, and figurative language. There are aspects of religion, tragedy, emotion, and affect present as well.
A theme in a literary text is one of the underlying meanings or general ideas that is examined by the author. A theme can be represented through the setting, plot, characters, or even the form of the text; these can act separately or together to present a multitude of themes across a literary text. Du Bois carries several themes throughout the multiple essays he presents in The Souls of Black Folk. Some of the major themes are explained below.
The experience of living in rural, all-Black communities is examined in the chapter, ''On the Meaning of Progress.'' Du Bois shares his experience teaching in a small town in Tennessee where the people are extremely poor and exist almost solely on sharecropping. While Du Bois, being from the North, is unable to relate to the people living in this rural community, he finds that the soul of that community is simple and strong, and he relates to them.
In his essay, ''Of the Black Belt,'' Du Bois speaks of the legal system as being barely removed from the justifications of slavery. He speaks of the experience and fear of lynching that was rampant during Restoration, as little was done to decrease to restrict the terrorist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan.
Du Bois speaks of tenant farming in similar ways as he does the legal system, in that it is barely removed from the systems of slavery. In his essay, ''Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece,'' Du Bois articulates the impossibilities of upward mobility within tenant farming, or sharecropping, because it is just a different system of slavery to debt.
Religion is a big theme within many of the essays, but it appears strongly in ''Of the Faith of the Fathers.'' Du Bois speaks of the Black church and factions of spiritualism within levels of religion. Religion appears behind the Veil, acting as the center of most Black social scenes and being crucial to the formation of identity.
The experience of prejudice is prevalent within all the essays in The Souls of Black Folk. The goal was to articulate the issue of the color line and how it affects social, legal, and political injustices against Black citizens and how the prejudice experienced individually and collectively during the Reformation is part of identity formation.
The legacy of slavery in 1903 is extremely present, and within that legacy is the immensely heavy emotional weight that must be carried through that level of survival. Ultimately, Du Bois' collection is one of perseverance and strength, speaking to his audience in ways that help overcome the burden that slavery continued to have on levels of morality.
W.E.B. Du Bois' first son died as an infant when he contracted diphtheria. In his essay, ''Of the Passing of the First-Born,'' Du Bois shares the individual narration of his son's death, which was largely, or solely, caused because white doctors in Atlanta refused to treat his son. This type of individuality relates to all the themes present in the collection as it speaks to the injustices, heartbreak, and grief that contribute to what it meant to be a Black citizen in the U.S. during Reconstruction.
This lesson discusses The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of semi-autobiographical essays from W.E.B. Du Bois published in 1903. The collection articulates:
W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois was born February 23, 1868, and lived until his death on August 27, 1963. He was born and raised by his mother in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Du Bois was a successful student and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Fisk University in Tennessee. He became the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from Harvard University.
Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk in 1903. His book offers an assessment of the progress of African Americans, the obstacles to progress, and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the 20th century. It is considered a groundbreaking work of African American literature and an American classic.
In his book, Du Bois proposes that the problem with the 20th century was the ''color-line.'' The phrase ''color line'' was a reference to the racial segregation that existed in the United States after the abolition of slavery. Some consider Du Bois's concepts of life behind the cover of race and ''double-consciousness'' to be the norm for African Americans in America. Double consciousness is considered a person caught between the self-conception of being ''American'' as well as a person of African descent, making it difficult to have a unified identity.
The content of this book also discusses Du Bois's experiences as a schoolteacher in rural Tennessee. He argues there should be a balance between the training and culture in order for African American colleges to train the Talented Tenth, which were those who could contribute to lower education and also act as liaisons to improve race relations.
Du Bois thought this would be difficult because the legal system and tenant farming at the time were not far removed from the previous slavery era. He goes on to examine the impact of slavery on morality and how religion for the African American culture was a vital part of this culture's history. In the last chapters of the book, Du Bois focused on the impact of racial prejudice. His book ends with African American spirituals. These were the songs that expressed the cultural difficulties that characterized the African American experience.
Overall, the content of this book examines the years that followed the Civil War, especially the Freedmen's Bureau's role in Reconstruction. Reconstruction was the period following the Civil War of rebuilding the United States, and the Freedmen's Bureau was a U.S. federal government agency that aided enslaved people who had been set free. Unfortunately, it was not very effective during the Reconstruction Era of the United States. The Bureau's failures were due not only to courts that were biased but also mismanagement and Southern opposition. The Bureau's most important contribution to progress was the founding of African American schools.
At the end of Reconstruction, Du Bois claimed that the most significant event that had occurred was the rise of Booker T. Washington as spokesman for the race. However, Du Bois also believed that Washington's approach to race relations was counterproductive to the long-term progress of the race. He thought Washington's acceptance of segregation represented an attitude of submission that resulted in losses in rights for the African American race. Du Bois insisted these rights were essential in order for African Americans to progress in the United States.
W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois was many things, including the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University and being an early civil rights activist for African Americans after the Civil War and Reconstruction. He also wrote his famous work, The Souls of Black Folk in 1903. It covered numerous subjects, including the ''color line,'' which was a reference to the racial segregation that existed in the United States after the abolition of slavery, and the importance of the Talented Tenth, which were those who could contribute to lower education and also act as liaisons to improve race relations. In the end, the book helped lay the groundwork for future civil rights activism and its material is referenced today.
Author and civil rights activist W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois brought to light the situation of the African American population after the Civil War and Reconstruction. In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, he described the ''color line'' and double consciousness of the African American people. He helped support Booker T. Washington as a spokesman for equal rights, even though he disagreed with Washington's acceptance of segregation.
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