1865-1914: Short Answer Quiz

W.E.B Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk


  1. Du Bois begins the “forethought” of The Souls of Black Folks by declaring that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line” (894 [full ed.]). In his first chapter, he shifts the word “problem” so that it applies to himself; he describes how whites will often ask him some variation of the question “How does it feel to be a problem?” In your own words, describe what Du Bois means by each instance of “problem,” being careful to note the difference between the two uses of the word.

  1. Early in his first chapter, “Of our Spiritual Strivings,” Du Bois narrates the moment in his childhood in which he first realizes that his white classmates see him as different and beneath them, and how the “vast veil” causes mutual contempt in him for them: “I held all beyond [the veil] in common contempt, and lived above in it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine” (896 [full ed.] 1730 [shorter ed.]). In this passage, Du Bois mentions how his “fine contempt” let him excel and develop his talents when he was younger. When and why did it prove insufficient? Why do you think Du Bois mentions his personal experiences with racism here¾what do they add to his argument, and for which readers would they prove persuasive? 

  1. In his chapter “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” Du Bois lays out a careful, measured rebuttal to Washington's “Atlanta Compromise,” part of which relies on repetition. Three times Du Bois provides a three-numbered list corresponding to the three characteristic themes of Washington's agenda for blacks’ political advocacy, civil status, and educational focus. First, he describes the consequences of the submission that Washington advocates to the white South (disenfranchisement, legal recognition of second-class citizenship, and withdrawal of funds from black educational institutions). Second, he assesses the three paradoxes of Washington’s career: his focus on black entrepreneurship and property can’t succeed without the franchise to protect them; his emphasis on thrift and dignity can't ennoble blacks if they also silently submit to inferiority; and he focuses on industrial and technical training rather than higher education, even though those higher schools are necessary in order to train the teachers at the vocational schools. Third, he argues that rational minds must, having considered the evidence, refute each of Washington's goals and advocate the opposite: “1. The right to vote. 2. Civic equality. 3. The education of youth according to ability” (907 [full ed. 1740 [shorter ed.]). What do you think the dramatic numbered lists add to Du Bois’s argument? Describe what Du Bois achieves by proceeding from consequence to paradox to refutation as he counters Washington's fame and influence.

  1. Before each of the chapters excerpted in this anthology, Du Bois begins his essays with staves of music from the “Sorrow Songs” (or black spirituals), “some echo of haunting melody from the only American music which welled up from black souls in the dark past” (895 [full ed.]). Why do you think Du Bois intercuts The Souls of Black Folk with these songs? What claims is he making about the applicability of the “Sorrow Songs” to the early twentieth-century black experience? 



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