Frederick Douglass And Du Dubois

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Although Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. never actually met, and perhaps never corresponded, but DuBois was inspired by Douglass’ thoughts, and in a way carried out his legacy. In January 1893, a youthful DuBois in the audience of Douglass’ lecture on Haiti at the Chicago World’s Fair, described as “line first and last time I saw Douglass” (Blight, 1990). Douglass died in 1895, the year DuBois received his doctorate from Harvard and one year after the young scholar’s return from studying at the University of Berlin. Despite Douglass not living long enough to read DuBois’ early writings, the concept of “twoness” in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) would have struck the former slave with a personal meaning. DuBois’ famous passage about “double consciousness”,

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