web du bois the souls of black folk 1903

He utilized Negro spirituals paired with prominent prose from white history to demonstrate that black people were not less culturally sophisticated or less human than white Americans.ĭu Bois is recognized for his contributions in sociology, but he also made contributions to American political economy by conducting empirical research on the African American experience, treating African Americans as full human beings, and giving attention to the economic environment that determined what opportunities were available to them. He also conveyed his disagreement with his style of writing. Ferguson in 1896 and that Washington had upheld with the Atlanta Compromise of 1895 agreeing with Southern leaders that blacks would submit to segregation if whites would allow blacks basic economic and educational opportunities.

Washington, who argued that blacks should be separate but equal as declared in Plessy v. His ideas defy many others of his time, even of contemporary black Americans, namely Booker T. His solutions also follow this two-part definition of causality. In this way he identifies a two-part cause of inequality-the racism of whites in America and the disregard for the rule of law that follows as well as moral depravity within the black community. Du Bois’s aim was to overcome this double consciousness and racism in America both through transforming the laws and institutions that propagate inequality of opportunity for African Americans as well as transforming the culture within the black community. This is the key insight of the larger work, that racism makes black people in America experience a dualism in life, both citizen and black, human and less-than. Du Bois focuses on how this racism creates a “double-consciousness” for blacks in America who realize they are American citizens with rights while also recognizing that the white man sees them as inferior. He provides a detailed, description in each essay of how racism toward African Americans continued even after emancipation. In the larger work, The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, from which this excerpt is drawn, Du Bois describes the historical conditions for African Americans in the post-Civil War South during Reconstruction and to his present day. Du Bois was also interested in political economy, and would have earned a PhD from Friedrich-Wilhelm III Universität after studying there for two years under leading faculty in the German Historical School of economics if his fellowship had not expired, requiring him to leave Germany. Ironically, Du Bois died the morning of the day that Martin Luther King Jr.

He was the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard University in 1895, and one of the founders of the NAACP in 1909. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) was a many-talented individual-an activist, sociologist, historian, educator, and poet, to name a few.

Web du bois the souls of black folk 1903