W.E.B. Du Bois Flashcards
What organization did Du Bois help found?
NAACP
What were Du Bois’s two late-in-life political commitments?
- Pan Africanism
- Communism
What, at least initially, did Du Bois think could overcome the color line?
Hard work
What two historical incidents helped shape Du Bois’s intellectual development?
- Failure of Reconstruction
- Implementation of legal segregation
What are some allusions used in “The Souls of Black Folk”? Why?
There are many classically “Western” allusions to Greek and Roman culture and the Bible (specifically, Black Americans were compared to Israelites held in bondage).
These allusions lent the text a mythic, spiritual quality and aimed to reclaim some of these traditions for black people. Du Bois was inscribing the history of Black Americans into the history of thought and connecting them to a tradition that largely ignores them.
“Souls” is also a work of translation that aims to make black experience accessible for those that have never been through it. Allusions to pervasive cultural items would have aided with that work.
What was the Talented Tenth?
The “intellectual elite” of black culture. Du Bois believed that it was this group of upper-class black people that would bear the brunt of the responsibility of changing oppressive culture/laws.
What is generally considered the most important idea Du Bois proposes in “Souls”?
Double Consciousness and the idea of the Veil (he did not invent this idea, but it was popularized by him)
What was Double Consciousness?
The sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it difficult or impossible to have one unified identity. Black people were forced to think of themselves as Americans and as Black people, two identities that society wanted to keep separate.
This was closely connected to Du Bois’ idea of the Veil, which he describes as a kind of barrier black people in America were born with. It keeps them from being seen clearly by white people, and keeps them separate from white/American culture at large.
The veil was a kind of physical embodiment of double consciousness that helped Du Bois explain the concept to his readers.
With what other black leader are Du Bois’s views often contrasted?
Booker T. Washington (who thought the first thing black people needed to do was gain a solid economic footing; rights could come afterwards; embodied in the Atlanta compromise)
What does Du Bois see as the main problem of the 20th century?
The problem of the color line
What does Du Bois call the snippets of black American music he prints before each chapter?
The Sorrow Songs
What are printed alongside The Sorrow Songs?
Not the traditional words to the songs, but excerpts from Western/white poetry and culture.
This is significant because it shows how Du Bois is attempting to merge black and white tradition. In the final chapter, Du Bois comments on the ancientness of the songs and their origins an Africa, imbuing them with the authority of the “white” lyrics with which they are paired. He is urging his readers to make an equation between the two that they might not have seen before.
An exception to this is the last chapter, which printed the lyrics of a “Negro Song.”
Quotable quote:
“Would America have been America without her Negro people?”
“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.”
“Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth.”
Discuss pronoun use in “Souls.”
Fluctuating use of pronouns throughout the text shows the difficult dance Du Bois was trying to do to address many different audiences. Sometimes he uses “you”, clearly addressing white audiences; sometimes “we” or “our” aligning himself with blacks; sometimes “we” meaning America altogether.
We can read into this a textual manifestation of Double Consciousness.
What is the topic of “Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece”?
Cotton production in the U.S. Cotton is compared to the mythical Golden Fleece, and Du Bois points out the contradiction that, though black people are primarily responsible for its production, they reap few of the economic rewards for doing so.
