I first met W.E.B. DuBois in the Black Humanity Seminar, hosted by Dr. Alexander Byrd at Rice University and co-sponsored by Rice and the Houston ISD Social Studies curriculum department. I use the word, “meet,” because I felt like I was meeting someone. I should have known who DuBois was, right? I mean, he was certainly one of the more prevalent black voices in America for half a century beginning in the last decade of the 19^th century. But in my high school history curriculum, I do not remember meeting Dubois. I do remember meeting Booker T. Washington—a subject to which I will return soon. All of the complaints that I hear concerning the failure to teach adequate history in today’s public schools and university fall on deaf ears when I think that in the 1970s (and college in the early 1980s), I do not remember learning anything about Dubois, one of the founders of the NAACP! DuBois wrote and spoke vociferously against the racism of American society and its effects on Black Americans. The book, The Souls of Black Folk, was one of those works. The book is a collection of essays that was first published in 1903. The purpose of this blog is to consider a few of his major arguments in the book and to tentatively (and perhaps presumptuously) apply those to America in 2020.

The first essay introduces what was probably Dubois’s most influential contribution to the conversation surrounding race in America (and the reason that Souls of Black Folks was read and discussed in our seminar at Rice). DuBois argued that black people in America lived with a “double consciousness,” which left them with “no true self-consciousness.” DuBois describes the dilemma. “One ever feels his two-ness, —an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” (2). This double consciousness means always having to worry about what the other person (i.e., white person!) is thinking. Hence, placed in later 20^th century context, when a police officer pulls over a black man, the man must be just as concerned (perhaps more concerned) with what that officer thinks about him than about what he has done or has not done. DuBois continues, “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, —this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self” (2). What are the results of this reality and the application of this double consciousness in the 21^st century? While some would likely argue that this double consciousness no longer exists in America, my own experience with black friends is that it does indeed still exist, in some of the same ways and in other different ways (but these are beyond this present scope of discussion). First, how does the double consciousness effect productivity? The black person must work twice as hard to achieve the same standards as his or her white counterpart. I believe that this is still true today, and that this reality needs to be considered before pointing out how many people of color, and how many poor people or minority people, have worked hard and succeeded. These success stories likely involved benefactors and double the work that I had to achieve, as a white middle-class American. Second, the double-consciousness was a protective measure. This realization can help make the journey of race discussions more successful. This realization helped me to understand why a peer told me that he could not talk to me about why he thought Obama was a great president. I was a naïve white biblical scholar asking a friend this question and had not yet even heard of double consciousness, but now I understand. To have that conversation with me was to lift the veil (a word that DuBois uses) of consciousness, revealing a place of vulnerability and danger. Finally, I think that the summer 2020 conflicts relate directly to the issue of double consciousness. For the first time, many people are telling the truth about their experiences of discrimination. They are raising a bit of the veil from the second consciousness, normally unseen by white Americans. Raising this veil has caused push-back and chaos. However, raising the veil will likely produce many positive results!  

The third essay in the book is entitled, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others.” In this essay, DuBois summarizes Black leaders in America from colonial times up to Reconstruction, concluding that these leaders “were usually, save [Frederick] Douglass, little known outside their race” (30). Unfortunately, I can corroborate DuBois’s belief that these important people are mostly unknown to white people. In this essay, DuBois is laying out his argument that represented a sharp divide in combatting the racial divide in America. Washington supported conciliation to the racial positions in America and a focus upon industrial training rather than formal education, with the purpose of raising the economic and societal standard of black people (Forgive the overly brief description). DuBois argues that, while Washington meant well and accomplished some positive things for black people in America, Washington’s approach has led to further “disenfranchisement of the Negro,” legality of “civil inferiority of the Negro,” and reduction of aid from “institutions of higher training for the Negro” (31). Instead, DuBois argues that they must ask (demand?) from this country three things: the right to vote, civic equality, and education of youth according to ability (32). DuBois agrees that Washington’s focus on an increase of thrift and hard work are positive, but he argues that without civic equality and the right to vote, true progress for black Americans is unattainable. Thus, DuBois argues for activism to achieve progress. I would argue that DuBois has clearly proven correct in the last century. Sixty years after Souls of Black Folks was published, Martin Luther King, Jr., led the march from Selma to Montgomery fighting for the same right to vote and for the same reason as Dubois. The battle for true equality continues today.

In the tenth essay, “Of the Faith of the Fathers,” DuBois investigates the integration of Black Africans and their descendants into American culture. In this essay, he returns to a lengthy discussion of the double consciousness of Black Americans. “The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment. Such a double life, with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes, must give rise to double words and double ideals, and tempt the mind to pretense or to revolt, to hypocrisy or to radicalism” (122). At the turn of the 20^th century, DuBois saw many Black Americans falling into two groups: those living a hypocrisy and accepting the lie that they are part of this culture and those living as radicals, sometimes even tending toward anarchy (122-125). Between these two extremes live most of the millions of Black Americans, seeking to live their lives outside and inside the veil of double consciousness.

DuBois concludes Chapter 10 by suggesting that one day an awakening (the chapter was primarily about religion) will come and that Black America will “sweep … out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where all that makes life worth living—Liberty, Justice, and Right—is marked ‘For Whites Only’” (125). In 1903, when Souls of Black Folks was published, I hear DuBois argues that the life behind the veil was living in the valley, while life outside the veil was “for whites only.” The 20^th century was filled with racial conflict and strife—from New York to Atlanta to Tulsa to Houston to Los Angeles to Chicago to Memphis to Jasper (TX). Battles were fought—some won and many lost. Casualties were numerous. We saw passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. We saw the advent of Affirmative Action (and the constant chipping away at it by later administrations). Still, my experience tells me that we are far from the awakening of which DuBois speaks, even after 117 years! I can hear my white friends exclaim, “But we had a black president,” “My bosses are black,” “Black athletes make $100 million,” and “inner-city school students get guaranteed admission to state universities.” All these statements are true. Yet, my personal conversations with engineers, pastors, educators, and administrators, and my academic conversations (through reading and listening) with professors, police officers, and senators, tell me a different story. These conversations tell me that the veil dividing the double consciousness is ever-present. We have seen only glimpses behind that veil, and even those glimpses have caused a backlash of negative responses, using the requisite terms of “thugs,” “Marxists,” “communists,” “racists,” etc. We still have conciliationists (like Washington) and some are activists (like DuBois). Some march peacefully and talk, others fight violently. We can approve and we can disapprove. However, we need to recognize that this 300 year veil of double consciousness will not be torn away without pain, anger, despair, and (likely) some violence—right or wrong. Certainly, progress has occurred in race relations over the past 100 years. However, African Americans and other minorities (of which DuBois frequently spoke!) still have higher unemployment, make less money, fill the prisons, are stopped unnecessarily by police, and have higher percentage of uninsured. Native Americans are still treated as second-class citizens on reservations scattered across the United States, victims of broken treaty after broken treaty (recent Supreme Court decision noted!). These realities may not be (but sometimes are) intentionally propagated. However, they are with us. They are a part of our culture. They are a part of our systems. They deserve to be addressed and changed. I join DuBois in his concluding prayer of Souls of Black Folks:

“Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world-wilderness. Let there spring, Gentle One, from out its leaves vigor of thought and thoughtful deed to reap the harvest wonderful. (Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.) Thus in Thy good time may infinite reason turn the tangle straight, and these crooked marks on a fragile leaf be not indeed.” (165)