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Are you interested in African American history? Would you like to understand the struggle for civil rights in America? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois is the right resource for you.
The Souls of Black Folk is American author and civil rights activist, W.E.B. Du Bois’ take on the situation of Black Americans in the post-Emancipation era. With his well-structured metaphorical and poetic language, Du Bois takes you on a nerve-racking journey through the extremely racist South. He illustrates the lives of Blacks in segregated towns and the pain and afflictions meted on them at the hands of Southern whites.
In this summary, you will learn about the thick “Veil” society put around the Blacks and what Du Bois recommended as the tool to help them get out of it.
“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” ~ W.E.B. Du Bois
Key points
1
Black Americans are generally seen as a problem by their white counterparts
Through a collection of non-fiction essays, W.E.B. Du Bois shares his account of what it meant to be Black in the United States in the twentieth century. He sought to open the “Veil” to highlight the religion, songs, passion, sorrows, and struggles of Black folks. The “Veil” is the thick invisible layer of demarcation that exists between Black people and white people.
The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line. ~ W. E. B. Du Bois
According to Du Bois, being a Black person in America meant being a problem. And the question that most white people want to ask Black men is, “What does it feel like to be a problem?” While they rarely ask this question directly, people fumble around it till it’s clear that is what they wish to know.
Du Bois first realized that society considered him a problem when he was in elementary school. It was a part of the school tradition for boys and girls in each class to share cards with one another during certain periods in the academic session.
One year, a new female student had enrolled, and when it was time to exchange cards, this girl peremptorily rejected Du Bois’ card. It then occurred to him that he was different from his white classmates and that he had been shut out of their world by a vast “Veil.” Afterward, Du Bois held the people on the other side of the view in contempt and made it his primary goal to be better than the whites at most things in life.
He experienced tremendous joy whenever he earned better grades or performed better in physical activities than the other children. However, Du Bois’ contempt faded within several years as it dawned on him that the white students had better opportunities and greater advantages than he did.
Du Bois first realized that society considered him a problem when he was in elementary school. It was a part of the school tradition for boys and girls in each class to share cards with one another during certain periods in the academic session.
One year, a new female student had enrolled, and when it was time to exchange cards, this girl peremptorily rejected Du Bois’ card. It then occurred to him that he was different from his white classmates and that he had been shut out of their world by a vast “Veil.” Afterward, Du Bois held the people on the other side of the view in contempt and made it his primary goal to be better than the whites at most things in life.
He experienced tremendous joy whenever he earned better grades or performed better in physical activities than the other children. However, Du Bois’ contempt faded within several years as it dawned on him that the white students had better opportunities and greater advantages than he did.
Although they live in the same country, an invisible yet immensely powerful force separates white and Black Americans.
In the following sections of this summary, you will get a deeper insight into the struggles of Blacks to gain true liberty in the United States after Emancipation in the late 1800s.
2
Emancipation didn’t really give Black Americans the level of freedom they needed
In America, Black people were destined to have a unique existence. They had a “double-consciousness” and perpetually looked at themselves from the perspective of the whites. They neither lived as Black people in America nor as Americans in America. The Blacks dangled hopelessly in the middle of these identities that couldn’t be harmoniously blended. Because these two identities are separated by the inevitable “Veil,” they are always at odds with one another.
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3
The inequalities Black Americans endured after the Emancipation were difficult to rectify
4
Progress is often difficult to measure in the face of tainted joy and crushed optimism
5
Education is the only tool that can successfully eradicate prejudice
6
Black Americans must be given the right to gain knowledge just like their white counterparts
7
