Summary Of The Souls Of Black Folk By Du Bois

For decades since the arrival of African people to America, they had been treated as no more than as material resources and had been oppressed by white society. During their slavery they were to work until death and could not learn to read or write. The author of the Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois, described the struggles of newly freed slaves and the current view of society. Once blacks became free it seemed like they were worse off than when they were slaves. Now they were responsible for their own income, work, family, and lives. White society still did not let them prosper like a white man could, they were put into a system in which they were to abide by the rules of white society, a sort of semi-slavery as Du Bois described. Now trapped

This double-consciousness creates a veil in which an individual is isolated from the rest of the world. It traps a person into a certain view of life, which does not allow them to see differently but only allows them to see themselves through the eyes of what other think or see of them. African Americans have been affected by the veil in the sense that it makes them feel inferior and secluded from the rest of society. It keeps them from becoming fully conscious of themselves. They see themselves as how they are perceived by the white community. As Du Bois has pointed out in his book, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line” (Pg. 13). The issue black’s face in the south are the prejudices of white society. The white society does not want blacks to be at the same level as them. They want blacks to be inferior to them as they were when they were subject to slavery because that is what they are used to. Whites do not like the change where blacks are free to decide their own life so they take action to create obstacles for blacks. In turn blacks fear this change to improve and decide their own life’s because of the consequences that would be imposed onto them for their decisions in life. For example, blacks feared getting educated because they would then be

To get to true equality, blacks must also be granted the power of the ballot. For it will liberate them and allow them to participate in the political process from which they were exempt from by whites. When blacks are able to vote for what is in the best interest of their black community then they will be able to improve their way of living. For years whites have decided what is in the best interest of blacks and Du Bois calls for an end to this system of dependency by granting blacks political power through voting. Du Bois states, “Negroes must insist continually, in season and out of season, that voting is necessary to modern manhood, that color discrimination is barbarism, and that black boys need education as well as white boys” (Pg. 47). Blacks must take action to pursue equality into the minds of white Americans. They need to be able to have the same rights as whites. Once blacks are able to get educated as the white man is able to, then they will be able to improve their place in society which whites have put them in. If blacks have the ability to get educated then they must be allowed to, based on their own free will to make their own life choices. In turn, society can prosper once true equality is sought