W.E.B. Dubois’s The Souls of Black Folk is a stirring portrayal of the plight and promise of black Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main goal of the text, it seems, is to reveal and illuminate the deep character of this distinctive community to as wide an audience as possible, and particularly to white Americans, most of whom, at the time of publication (1903), lacked real knowledge about the minority in their midst; this void was substituted with stereotypes and prejudice. Dubois was well placed for such an endeavour—he was born in 1868, only 3 years after the abolishment of slavery, and became the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard. Like his peers among the intelligentsia, he had a classical education, a form of learning which combined the study of biblical history with ancient Greek and Roman texts. In graduate school he specialized in sociology, where he learned the techniques of rigorous field work. These two influences go far in explaining Dubois’ success in providing deep insight on the phenomenon under investigation. Moreover, he presents his ideas with a lyrical, musical, and poetic writing style that one rarely finds among academics educated in North American universities. This aesthetic aspect of the book helps to leave an enduring impression on the reader and hence merits a separate analysis; that will be the focus of the conclusion.
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| A Soulful Writer |
The Promise and Failure of Emancipation
As readers know, it took a bloody civil war for America to finally abolish the institution of slavery across the entire country. This was partly the result of intransigent Southern states; while Northern states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire ended slavery just after the Revolution, the South’s agricultural-based economy depended on stolen labour, and, to paraphrase Bismarck, only blood and iron could end the abominable practice. In another sense, this was also the victory of the Abolition movement, which tirelessly and relentlessly worked to convince others of the moral stain of slavery on the nation’s consciousness. Dubois recounts the understandably high expectations of this period. Many believed that Emancipation would be a huge step forward towards racial equality. In some respects, it was, since making slavery illegal and unconstitutional was a necessary first step towards racial justice. But in the American South—which is the focus of Dubois’s analysis—high hopes for freedom and racial equality were disappointed.
The Souls of Black Folk reveals many of the reasons for this outcome; they can usefully be divided into economic and cultural causes. Regarding the former, the forceful end of the slave-based economy led to a major financial crisis, because the main asset in the South, cotton fields, collapsed in value when the stolen labour which cultivated it was no longer available. This led to mass bankruptcy and the need for painful restructuring which impacted everyone, including blacks, who now had to rely on themselves for the necessities of living rather than the slave owner. During and after this major economic depression, resources became scarcer, and competition more pronounced, particularly among workers without savings. And because of slavery, blacks were unprepared for the subsequent ruthless competition in the labour market. Many had knowledge about agricultural methods, but they lacked the capital to create their own businesses. Consequently, they went into debt to obtain land and the necessary equipment, and mortgaged their future crop yields to obtain this capital. Dubois observes how this led to a new kind slavery in the form of bondage to white creditors, who could use a deeply racist justice system, courts and police, to enforce asset seizures.
Another, equally important, part of the explanation is cultural. The Souls of Black Folk documents how the centuries-long institution of slavery had morally corrosive effects on both master and slave. Dubois recounts the intimate bonds between masters and slaves in some households because of the proximity of their relations—they often lived in close quarters, attended the same churches, frequently communicated, and sometimes copulated. And as long as blacks accepted this state of affairs with resignation, this bizarre mix of supremacy and intimacy could continue. Over time, this inculcated habits and beliefs which rendered both groups, and particularly blacks, unprepared for productive cooperation needed after Emancipation. Blacks had internalized submission, passiveness, and distrust of authority, while whites imbibed a sense of entitlement. Consequently, after the violent imposition of Emancipation, they became estranged; this rendered the painful economic restructuring worse than it might have been.
As a result, at the time of Dubois’s writing—which was two generations after the end of slavery—the conditions of blacks in the American South were still deplorable. Under these circumstances, a new generation of black elites emerged with innovative proposals to resolve their peoples’ plight. Predictably, fierce disagreements emerged; although they agreed on the objective of ameliorating the condition of Southern blacks, there was bitter discord on tactics and strategy. The Souls of Black Folk addresses this debate with reference to a key figure in African American history, Booker T. Washington, whose approach can be characterized in the following way: blacks in the South had to focus on accumulating wealth by creating skilled workers and by starting businesses. The means to do this was an industrial education via the establishment of technical schools which arose in the late 19th century to serve the needs of manufacturing. As they equalized their economic conditions by hard work and effort, racial equality would eventually be realized, even if it occurred very slowly. Until then, Washington says, blacks had to accept the reality of Southern racism, avoiding unnecessarily provoking whites with demands for justice. Dubois vociferously opposes this on several levels. The first is that it blames Southern blacks for their plight. By implication, this absolves whites of their role in racial injustice and its nefarious side effects. Second is that it elevates a crude materialist philosophy of money-making; for Dubois, blacks needed the uplifting ideals of truth, justice, and beauty to dignify their souls, and only a classical education, like the one he received, could accomplish this. Third, Dubois says, is that Washington ignored the necessary political struggle of demanding racial justice and being frank about the barbarism of Southern racism. And it was a classical, not business, education that would better prepare blacks for this endeavour.
It is in the context of this debate that Dubois reveals his theory of social struggle and advancement. The first, as mentioned above, is the importance of a classical education. All blacks would obtain a secondary-level education, while only 10 percent would be suitable for the higher education required, say of teachers and preachers. This moral and intellectual elite would have the duty of uplifting their people, in schools and churches, about the sacred rights of individuals to freedom and equality. Secondly, and equally importantly, is that Southern whites had a crucial role to play. The best of them, says Dubois, recognized the importance of racial equality, but because of the financial and cultural trauma of Emancipation, were estranged from blacks; this separation only confirmed the worst impressions of white racism. According to Dubois, well-meaning Southern whites needed to ally with the black elite mentioned above to demonstrate that productive and mutually beneficial coexistence was possible. Fruitful cooperation between elite blacks and whites would then filter down to the lower classes, transform society, and help America realize the ideals upon which it was founded.
Dubois, accordingly, had faith in America’s capacity to achieve racial justice. The Souls of Black Folk repeatedly invokes the soaring rhetoric of the nation’s founding documents to convey the sense that racism is a betrayal of America’s core identity. He believed in racial struggle, but for the purpose of making blacks fully American, with the same opportunities as whites for the realization of political and economic advancement. His wide travelling across, and deep knowledge, of the country, and his observing the wide variation in the conditions of blacks, provided grounds for this hope. Most of the text is about the racial question in the South, partly because the North, with its industrial economy and strong abolition movement, had made major strides towards racial justice, even though racism was still rife and much improvement was needed. And even in the South, the situation of blacks was not homogenous; Dubois observes how, in some cities, like Atlanta, there were many successful and independently wealthy black businesses, professionals, and families, while some isolated small towns were seemingly untouched by progress, and slavery continued to exist de facto.
The Sociology of Black Folk
As mentioned in the introduction, Dubois was a Harvard trained sociologist, and he deployed his expertise to reveal the cultural life of Southern blacks. This is the section that I found most compelling, in part because I share his social scientists’ perspective on the importance of rigorous field work to derive insight about political communities, rather than, say, the out-of-touch theoretical navel gazing which often occurs in the ivory tower. We can begin with his definition of culture, which is one of the best I have read, despite being penned 120 years ago:
"The thousand and one little things which make up life. In any political community, it is these little things which are most elusive to grasp and yet are most essential to any clear conception of group life…this is peculiarly true in the South…where there has been going on for a generation as deep a storm and stress of human souls, as intense a ferment of feeling, as intricate a writing of spirit, as ever a people experienced…vast social forces have been at work—efforts for human betterment, movements towards disintegration and despair, tragedies and comedies in social and economic life, and a swaying and lifting and sinking of human hearts which have made this land a land of mingled sorrow and joy."
Christianity was perhaps the most important cultural component of the black community, and Dubois documents its paradoxical mix of regressive and liberating tendencies. During slavery, blacks adopted the religion of their oppressors, but they mixed the faith with their distinctive traditions imported from Africa, and in the process created a body of believers unique in the Christian world. Unlike white Christians in the 19th century, black believers integrated rhythmic singing, dancing, and passion into their practises of worship, forms which would eventually be copied by American whites. The black church was also the centre of social activity, created ties of solidarity and took a decisive role in the moral education of parishioners. The black preacher became a powerful figure, comparable to the tribal chief in their ancestral homelands, whose preaching was suffused with a soaring, lyrical, and musical style which would, every Sunday, uplift the spirits of black folks who, outside the Church’s sacred walls, experienced the deep racism of the South. And, as Dubois recognizes, many black men of the cloth would eventually play a decisive role in advancing racial justice through their faith-inspired activism.
On the other hand, during the period of slavery, Dubois recounts how Christianity served the status quo because, by promising justice in the next life, it inculcated a sense of resignation to the oppression of the present. Many blacks, consequently, accepted their lot in the expectation that freedom and happiness would finally be achieved after death, when they entered heaven and the bosom of Jesus Christ. A fundamental change occurred in the black church after Emancipation and the realization that racial justice was not being realized. Black activists such as Alexander Crumwell proclaimed that their faith compelled them to pursue justice and freedom in this world, rather than wait for them to appear in the next. And this new conception of the faith would eventually filter through to the community of believers, imbuing them with a stronger sense of their rights as equal members of God’s creation.
The Aesthetics of The Souls of Black Folk
A review of The Souls of Black Folk would be wholly inadequate without an account of Dubois’s style of writing. As mentioned in the intro, his classical education seeps throughout the text. To reveal the deeper meaning of an observation, he frequently cites a biblical figure as a metaphor. For example, referring to the importance of education in the post-emancipation period, he says “[h]ere at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight.” Canaan, many readers will know, was the land God promised to Jews during the ordeal of slavery in Egypt. Jewish liberation as recounted in the bible became an inspiring guide to black freedom in the American South.
Another literary technique which flows from his classical education is to cite an important classical thinker for the purpose of accentuating the importance of an point. To emphasize his critique of Booker T. Washington’s promotion of industrial education and money-making, Dubois muses “one wonders what would Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi say to this.” The first is a metaphor for the uplifting properties of education and its association with virtue, truth, beauty; while St. Francis renounced his inherited wealth and devoted his life to the poor and vulnerable. Here, Dubois is invoking their spiritual and intellectual legacy to give moral weight to his critique of Washington’s proposals. Nonetheless, despite disagreeing with Washington, he refers to him as the “Joshua of God’; Joshua was the successor of Moses and led the conquest of the promised land. Here, Dubois recognizes the extraordinary, perhaps providential, leadership of Washington even if he disagreed with him on tactics and strategy.
For Dubois, biblical stories, and the works of Aristotle and Shakespeare, were universal to humanity while being deeply subversive. In recounting his own education, he says he sat “with Shakespeare and he winces not…I summon Aristotle and Aurelius…and they come graciously with no scorn or condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell upon the Veil [i.e. racial injustice] …is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah…we sight the Promised Land?” (Pisgah is the mountain from which Moses first sees the promised land). Here, classical texts are deployed as accessible to all without “scorn” or “condescension”; and those who are educated via these great thinkers become vectors of truth and justice that cannot be clouded by the oppressors' self-serving lies.
One of the Southern cities Dubois praises for its progress is Atlanta, Georgia. During the civil conflict, “the iron baptism of war awakened her with its sullen waters, aroused and maddened her, and left her listening to the sea. And the sea cried to the hills and the hills cried to the sea, till the city rose like a widow and cast her away her weeds, and toiled for her daily bread.” One result of this growth was Atlanta University, where young blacks “in a half dozen classrooms, gather to follow the love-songs of Dido, and listen to the tale of Troy divine.” In so doing, they are learning the “old time-glorified methods of delving for Truth, and searching for the hidden beauties of life, and learning the good of living.” Not all students, says Dubois, are suited for this higher education; some are better placed in the more practical and technical professions. But both must ultimately be guided by ideals inculcated by a classical education: “to make men, we must have ideals, broad, pure and inspiring ends of living…the worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay, and thinker must think for truth, not for fame…and weaving thus a system, not a distortion, and bringing a birth, not an abortion.”
Anyone who has attended a church service in the black community, or who has seen one on television, may recognize this lyrical and rhythmic style of communicating. It adds deep aesthetic value to Dubois’s sociological analysis, and makes some passages more memorable than they would have been were they expressed in dry academic prose. Perhaps this was Dubois’s intention: by combining African Americans distinctive way of communicating to his classical and sociological training, he produced a synthesis which created something new, better, and more enriching than each, on their own, would have been. Ultimately, this parallels what he hoped would occur in America: black peoples’ contributions to American life would combine with the best of America’s traditions, creating something new and distinctive and the realization of the nation’s highest ideals.
