The Souls of Black Folk
editThe Souls of Black Folk is the most popular work of W.E.B. Du Bois. It’s a collection of writings which combines history, sociology, fiction, and autobiography. According to Brodwin (1972), The Souls of Black Folk alone has reached a wide audience in more than twenty editions. In the burgeoning Black Studies programs throughout the country, it is required reading, and is now belated included in American history and literature courses in some universities.
Summary of The Souls of Black Folk
editThe Souls of Black Folk was published on April 18, 1903- “127 years after the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and 116 years after they adopted the United States Constitution in 1787” (Velikova, 2000: 432). “Du Bois recognized the fact that the black community could not, with its weak power base, achieve a social revolution completely on its own. He was able to see the symbiotic relationship between white and black in America, and he strove to enlighten his white audience as to the specific psychological and economic tensions and bonds that affected both races. There The Souls of Black Folk had to be not only a force in awakening black pride, but also a spiritual guidebook for whites, most of whom had little awareness of the genuine strivings and psychic realities in black folk. Like many black writers, Du Bois had to speak to audiences of two different mental and cultural dispositions, and bridge the gap between them” (Brodwin, 1972: 305).
Each chapter of The Souls of Black Folk opened with epigrams from mainstream Western culture. Du Bois refused to decide between America’s two cultures, he sought a syncretism in which whiteness and blackness were not arrayed in opposition one to the other. (Katznelson, 1999). Du Bois examined the years immediately following the Civil War and the impact of slavery on morality. In later chapters, he focused on how racial prejudice impacts individuals. Du Bois concludes his book with an essay on African American spirituals. The songs are meant to be an expression of human experience (Du Bois, 1903).
Key Sociological Terms in The Souls of Black Folk
editDu Bois coined the term “double consciousness” to help explain the mental conflict that exists for many people of African descent living in the United States. According to Moore (2005), double consciousness is the thought process of being Black or American. Being associated with cultural heritage from Africa would imply being Black. To be an American is to be a Black person, by skin coloration, who identifies with White people and European culture. “The two-ness of Du Bois’s cultural identity reflects and is a function of what he termed the Veil-the barrier of stereotypical beliefs and oppressive practices that splits or disrupts the historical and social space of African-American life. On the sociological level, the Veil signifies the colorline, the placements of power that maintain the relationship of white over Black. On the psychological level, the veil transforms the hyphen in African-American identity into the painful two-ness of self alienation” (Wolfenstein, 2000: 121). According to Burke (1977), “Du Bois did not think of the Veil as one-dimensional, merely suggesting a wall, chasm, or uncrossable line between the races. During slavery when a black person was denied an autonomous self, Du Bois is reminding us, he had been so enmeshed in the Veil that his paper freedom left him with only a vaguely emergent selfhood, still virtually inaccessible to him. The dominant group outside the Veil, is also enmeshed, with the vast difference that it may live quite comfortably believing that this is the way things should be, indeed, the way they were ordained to be. The Veil distorts images for those on either side. Provocatively revealing only to re-veil, it has created and reinforced clichés and stereotypes. The legacy of the Veil in America has been especially harmful for white Americans who control the power centers of the nation" (pg. 92).
In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois talks about the “second sight: with which a Black American sees a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself though the revelations of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” Burke (1977) stated that “while white Americans have complacently measured themselves by their own definitions and values with little concern about how they were perceived by those within the Veil, who could be visible when whites wanted them to be and invisible the rest of the time" (pg. 92).
Criticisms of The Souls of Black Folk
editAccording to Rabaka (2006), most of Du Bois’s critics have downplayed and diminished the real brilliance of his work by failing to grasp its antinomies and have, therefore, put forward a divided and distorted Du Bois who is either, for example, a pan-Africanist or Europhile, a Black nationalist or radical humanist, a social scientist or propagandist, a race man or radical women’s rights man, a bourgeois elitist or dogmatic Marxist. Each of the aforementioned superficial ascriptions falls short of capturing the complex and chameleonic character of Du Bois’s discourse and the difficulties involved in interpreting it using one-sided, single-subject theory and/or monodisciplinary devices.
James Weldon Johnson, a writer and scholar, said that The Souls of Black Folk “has had a greater effect upon and within the black race in America than any other single book published in this country since Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In short, the work has become an established part of American literacy culture and history. However, apart from an occasional appreciative glance at the literacy aspects of this unified collection of essays, the book has received no extended criticism” (Brodwin, 1972: 305).
Reiland Rabaka (2006) stated, “Many critics have made solid criticisms of some aspect of Du Bois’s thought but, when analyzed objectively, his lifework and intellectual legacy are impressive and inspiring, as is his loyalty to the most radical thought and practice traditions in Africana and world history" (pg. 751).
References
edit- Brodwin, Stanley 1972. “The Veil Transcended Form and Meaning in W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk.” Journal of Black Studies, 2(3):303-321.
- Burke, Virginia M. 1977. “The Veil and Vision.” Black American Literature Forum, 11(3): 91-94.
- Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Souls of Black Folk; Essays and Sketches.” Chicago: A.C. McClurg and Co., 1903.
- Katznelson, Ira 1999. “President’s Address: Du Bois’s Century.” Social Science History, 23(4): 459-474.
- Moore, T Owens 2005. “A Fanonian Perspective on Double Consciousness.”Journal of Black Studies, 35(6): 751-762.
- Rabaka, Reiland 2006. “The Souls of Black Radical Folk W.E.B. Du Bois, Critical Social Theory, and the State of Africana Studies.” Sage Publications, 36(5): 732-763.
- Schrager, Cynthia D. 1996. “Both Sides of the Veil: Race, Science, and Mysticism in W.E.B. Du Bois.” American Quarterly, 48(4): 551-586.
- Velikova, Roumiana 2000. “W.E.B. Du Bois vs. the Sons of the Fathers: A Reading of The Souls of Black Folk in the Context of American Nationalism.” African American Review, 34(3): 431-442.
- Wolfenstein, Victor E. 2000. “On the Road Not Taken: Revolt and Revenge in W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk.” Journal for Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, 5(1): 121.