Dubois Color Line

W.E.B DuBois, a well known civil liberties advocate, in his speech, Niagara Movement, illuminates the need for racial equality in America. DuBois’ purpose is to call white Americans to action, as well as highlight the effects of the African American’s white superiors excluding them from simple, constitutionally given, liberties. He adopts an authoritative tone in order to establish a feeling of guilt for the white people who determine the rights given to African-Americans. W.E.B DuBois convinces his audience that African-Americans should become equal on a social, economical and political level, through the use of emotional diction, reasonable ideas and a dominant tone.

In his essay, “The Souls of the Black Folk” Du Bois (1903) states that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line,-the relation of the darker to lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” (275). According to Appelrouth and Edles (2012: 269) “the color line is both a preexisting social and cultural structure and an internalized attitude”. In addition, they explain that the color line “addresses the historical and institutional (i.e., colonial) dimensions of race” (269).

3.) According to DuBois, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” Using several representative examples, consider how American writers (of any color) since the Civil War have addressed this problem.

During the 19th and 20th century African Americans faced Discrimination in the United States. Three African Americans took roles of leadership and began trying to uplift the lives of blacks in society. Those who took control of this movement were Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B Dubois. These activists wanted the same result and implemented different techniques to follow their similar hopes for blacks in America. Each of these leaders has allowed America to develop in extensive ways for several years and those yet to come. Alternate pathways were taken by each leader to resolve the overall issue of racism. These issues include things such as not having the right to vote,own property and prevent lynchings. This paper will argue that had Garvey's theory of the new negro and Dubois’ ideas of education been implemented, racism in America would have been reduced because the allocation of education would allow for their to become a new negro. The application of Marcus Garvey's theory including thoughts of W.E.B Dubois’ on racism would have brought white power to an end.

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.

In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B DuBois pioneers two concepts that describe the Black experience in America— the notions of “the veil” and “double-consciousness.” The meaning and implication of these words not only describe the plight of being Black and American then, it also refers to what it means to still be Black and American today – the remnants of the past live on. DuBois explains the veil concept in reference to three things: the literal darker skin of Blacks, which is the physical demarcation of the difference from whiteness, white people’s lack of clarity in order to see Blacks as “true” Americans, and lastly Blacks’ lack of clarity to see themselves outside of what white America prescribes for them. The idea of double consciousness refers to the two-ness, caused by our nations flawed and polarized system, felt by many Blacks. I argue that although DuBois was the first to coin these two terms, it is clear through analyzing Uncle Tom’s Cabin and 12 Years a Slave that these two significant concepts gave a name to what African-Americans had been feeling for years but previously could not define.

Today racial inequality is ongoing whether you are aware of it or not. We have come a long way from segregated seats to public transportation. The issue of race and race relations has really scarred the history of this nation and has been a constant reminder of the horrors people endured as a result of race relations in this country. The ideas from both of the readings explain how black Americans faced hatred and violence because they were viewed as less then. The writings also include how each leader is trying to change the world’s view of

In the W.E.B Dubois’s essay The Souls of Black Folk, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, he talks about many of his personal experiences of being an African American in the early 1900’s. Dubois develops 3 main central ideas that relate to his experiences. These central ideas are self-consciousness, double consciousness, and the ideal of human brother hood. In his essay he uses some textual evidence provided with some rhetoric and figurative language to prove his ideas.

Lastly, the spirit and “soul” of the individual was threatened. In the Gilded Age, many workers lost a sense of their true identity, and turned to drinking or long fits of depression. In DuBois’ writings, we also here stories of the desperate slave who has had his identity stripped of him by wealthy plantation owners. However, through all the inhumane and degrading atrocities they faced, the spirit of African-American’s as a people did not die. In DuBois’ book, we read songs and stories that kept hope alive. We

For decades there has been a great deal of controversy over the importance of African American citizens. The Souls of Black Folks, by W.E.B. DuBois, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement both have multiple similarities that deserve to be thoroughly examined. Although DuBois’ work and the modern day movement occurred decades apart, some common similarities include: the realization in the black souls that they are seen differently, the lack of fairness towards black people, and the great divide between black and white citizens.

The root cause of the problems and issues that faced African Americans from the beginning of the Reconstruction Period well into the 20th century “is the problem of the color-line, -the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” (W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of the Black Folk, 1903). The most obvious root cause for racism problems and issues African Americans face is white supremacy.

Dubois writings, unlike Washington’s writings survived aging and sounds modern. Both Dubois and Washington, however, wanted the best for their people, both were sincerely engaged in racial uplift, and therefore in the end neither was “right” or “wrong.” Indeed, Washington’s ideas fitted the era that he lived in and Dubois ideas the future.

This higher power represented by Dubois was the white population. Even after emancipation, the slaves were still captive. They worked only for a place to live and food to eat because they had no money to enter the world as working men in business or in anything other than their learned skill of farming and raising the household. Similarly, Dubois lives in a generation where the black man is free, yet he is still segregated in nearly everything he does. He claims how “The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land”(8). By writing this, he claims how America is still not perfect, yet no matter how far they have come, “the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people”(8). His

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about….No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife (“How it Feels to Be Colored Me”153).

The Souls of Black Folk broadens the minds of the readers, and gives the reader a deeper understanding into the lives of people of African heritage. W.E.B. Du Bois articulates the true meaning of the problem of the color-line through his vast knowledge of American history and descriptive personal scenarios. Du Bois