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

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Souls of Black Folk advances the thesis that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.” Du Bois traces what he calls the “double-consciousness” of African Americans, the “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.” The book assesses the progress of blacks, the obstacles that blacks face, and the possibilities for progress in the future. Chapter III, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” directly addresses Washington’s assimilationist views. The cleavage between Washington and Du Bois is one that still reverberates in American race relations.

The Ascendancy of Mr. Booker T. Washington

In the first eight paragraphs of Chapter III, Du Bois outlines the rise of Booker T. Washington to prominence. He points to the growth and industrial development of the United States, what other authors have called the “Gilded Age,” when business was expanding and fortunes were being made in the decades following the Civil War. He notes that in the antebellum years, efforts to provide blacks with industrial training had taken place under the auspices of organizations such as the American Missionary Association and individuals such as William G. Price, an African American educator whose career mirrored that of Washington. Du Bois refers to these efforts at industrial education as a “by-path” that Washington was able to turn into a “Way of Life.” Du Bois continues by noting that Washington’s program won applause in the South and admiration in the North, though not necessarily among blacks.

Du Bois then goes into more detail about Washington and his program. He refers to Washington’s efforts in creating Tuskegee Institute and cites the “Atlanta Compromise” speech of 1895, where Washington advocated (to a largely white audience) that blacks abandon the quest for social and political equality until they have achieved economic equality. Many blacks saw the speech as a surrender, but many whites applauded it, making Washington—in the words of Du Bois—the “most distinguished Southerner since Jefferson Davis,” the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. In paragraph 4, Du Bois begins his critique of Washington by suggesting that he had “grasped the spirit of the age which was dominating the North” and that he had learned the speech of “triumphant commercialism,” where manual skills were more important than something as presumably esoteric as French grammar. In paragraph 5, Du Bois ironically refers to Washington as a “successful man” in gathering a “cult” of followers, but he also indicates that the time has come to point out Washington’s mistakes and shortcomings.

Du Bois hints at the nature of the criticism that Washington has encountered. In his position, Washington has had to “walk warily” to avoid offending his patrons and the South in general. Du Bois notes that at the National Peace Jubilee at the end of the Spanish-American War, Washington alluded to racial prejudice, and he appears to have done so at a White House dinner he had with President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901—a highly publicized and controversial event. These events attracted some criticism, but Washington has generally managed adroitly to avoid giving offense, says Du Bois. In paragraph 7, Du Bois asserts that Washington has encountered opposition, some of it bitter, among his own people, particularly “educated and thoughtful colored men.” While these men might admire Washington’s honest efforts to do something positive, they feel “deep regret, sorrow, and apprehension” because of the popularity of Washington’s views. Paragraph 8 notes, however, that people are hesitant to criticize Washington openly. This, says Du Bois, is “dangerous,” and he raises the question of whether African Americans are submitting to a leader who has been imposed on them by external pressure.

The History of the American Black Leadership

Paragraph 9 begins to examine the history of leadership in the African American community. Du Bois observes that these leaders emerge from the environment in which the people lived, and when that environment consists of “sticks and stones and beasts,” people will oppose it. Thus, in paragraph 10, he discusses black leadership before 1750. He makes reference to the “Maroons,” the name given to escaped slaves in Haiti and throughout the Caribbean who formed gangs that lived in the forests. These gangs, which were generally small but sometimes grew to thousands of men, repeatedly attacked French plantations. “Danish blacks” refers to a group of slaves who, in 1723, gained control of Saint John in the Virgin Islands (then the Danish West Indies) for six months. Cato of Stono is a reference to the Stono Rebellion of 1739 (also called Cato’s Rebellion), a slave revolt in South Carolina. By the end of the century, however, it was thought that “kindlier relations” would replace rebellion, as exemplified in the poetry of “Phyllis” (that is, Phillis Wheatley) and the heroism of blacks such as Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, and Salem Poor during the Revolutionary War. James Durham was the first African American doctor in the colonies, and Benjamin Banneker was an accomplished scientist, mathematician, and surveyor who helped lay out Washington, D.C. “Cuffes” is a reference to Paul Cuffe and his followers, who wanted to establish a free colony in West Africa.

Du Bois then turns to the worsening condition of American slaves in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Notable events included the revolt in Haiti led by Toussaint-Louverture that resulted in an independent Haiti in 1803. Back in the United States, significant slave revolts were headed by Gabriel Prosser in Virginia in 1800, Denmark Vesey in South Carolina in 1822, and Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831. Meanwhile, in the North, African Americans were segregating themselves in black churches at a time when white mainstream churches were ignoring their needs. Paragraph 12 alludes to David Walker’s highly influential Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, written in 1829. Du Bois goes on to point out instances of prominent northern men who “sought assimilation and amalgamation with the nation on the same terms with other men,” but says that they continued to be regarded as “despised blacks.”

Accordingly, during the abolition era prior to the Civil War, numerous black leaders, including Charles Lenox Remond, William Cooper Nell, William Wells Brown, and Frederick Douglass, launched a new period of self-assertion. The logic of self-assertion reached its extreme with John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. After the Civil War, leadership in the African American community passed to Douglass and several others: Robert Brown Elliott, a black congressman; Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first black senator to serve a full term; Charles Langston, a black activist (and grandfather of the poet Langston Hughes); Alexander Crummell, an abolitionist and pan-Africanist; and Daniel Payne, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and one of the founders of Wilberforce University, where he became the first African American college president in the nation’s history.

In paragraph 14, Du Bois uses the term “Revolution” to refer to the disputed presidential election of 1876, which led to the end of the Reconstruction era. In the post-Reconstruction climate, Douglass and Bruce carried on, but Bruce died in 1898 and Douglass was aging. Booker T. Washington arose to fill the vacuum they left, becoming the leader not of one race but of two, both blacks and whites. Some blacks resented Washington’s ascendancy, but their criticisms were hushed because of the potential of economic gains as northern businesses were investing in southern enterprises. All were weary of the race problem, and Washington’s views seemed to provide a way out.

The Old Attitude of Adjustment and Submission

Beginning with paragraph 15, Du Bois takes on Washington directly. He describes Washington’s program as one of “adjustment and submission” and one that “practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races.” Washington “withdraws” the demands of African Americans for equality as citizens. He calls for African Americans to surrender political power, civil rights, and higher education and instead to “concentrate all their energies on industrial education, and accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South.” The result, however, has been the “disfranchisement” (usually spelled “disenfranchisement”) of blacks, legalized civil inferiority, and loss of opportunities for higher education. In paragraph 17, Du Bois asks whether it is even possible for blacks to achieve economic equality when they have been denied political power, civil rights, and access to education. He then goes on to point out the paradoxes: that black artisans and workingmen cannot defend their rights without the vote, that submission will “sap” the manhood of any race, and that an institution like Tuskegee itself could not remain open without a class of African Americans who have pursued higher education. The result of these paradoxes has been the creation of two classes of blacks: those who “represent the attitude of revolt and revenge” and those who disagree with Washington but cannot say so. These people, according to Du Bois, are obligated to demand of the nation the right to vote, civic equality, and access to education. In paragraph 20, Du Bois acknowledges that the “low social level” of many African Americans leads to discrimination, but he also argues that “relentless color-prejudice is more often a cause than a result of the Negro’s degradation.” He insists that there is a demand for educational institutions to provide training for African American teachers, professionals, and leaders.

Du Bois continues in paragraph 21 by obliquely criticizing those, particularly blacks, who accept Washington and his views. He acknowledges that they see in Washington an effort to conciliate the South, no easy task. But he also insists that the issue is one that has to be approached honestly. They recognize that the right to vote, civic rights, and the right to be educated will not come easily, and that the prejudice of the past will not disappear overnight. But they also know that the path to progress will not open by throwing away rights; a people cannot gain respect by “continually belittling and ridiculing themselves.”

The Thinking Classes of American Negroes

With paragraph 22, Du Bois begins to build toward a conclusion. He insists that “the thinking classes of American Negroes” are obliged to oppose Washington. While acknowledging that there has been some progress in relations between North and South after the Civil War, he states that if reconciliation has to be bought at the price of “industrial slavery and civic death” or by “inferiority,” then patriotism and loyalty demands disagreement with Washington. He maintains that it is necessary to judge the South with discrimination, to recognize that it is a place in ferment and undergoing social change. He concedes in paragraph 24 that the attitude toward blacks in the South is not uniform; ignorant people want to disenfranchise blacks, but not all southerners are ignorant. Among those who are ignorant, he mentions North Carolina governor Charles Aycock, a white supremacist; Thomas Nelson Page, who wrote sentimental novels idealizing pre–Civil War plantation life; and Ben Tillman, an open racist who fought Republican government in South Carolina as a member of a paramilitary group known as the Red Shirts.

Du Bois acknowledges that Washington has opposed injustice to people of color. Nevertheless, he calls Washington’s views “propaganda” that justifies the South in its attitude toward African Americans, that blacks are responsible for their own degraded condition, and that only through their own efforts can blacks rise in the future. Du Bois counters these “half-truths” by arguing that race prejudice is still a potent force in the South, that earlier systems of education could not succeed without a class of educated blacks, and that blacks can rise only if the culture at large encourages and arouses this effort. The key mistake Washington makes is to impose the burden of the “Negro problem” on blacks without recognizing that it is a national problem, one that it will take the united efforts of North and South to solve. Indeed, says Du Bois, industrial training, along with virtues such as thrift and patience, are to the good, but without fighting for the right and duty to vote, eliminating the “emasculating effects of caste distinctions,” and striving for higher education, the promise of the Founding Fathers that “all men are created equal” will never be realized.