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

Questions for Further Study

• 1. What role did Du Bois play early on in the Harlem Renaissance? In what way did he help create a climate of thought that led to the renaissance?
• 2. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington are often thought of as representing the opposite poles of black thought during this era. See Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) and summarize the points of view of each figure. Explain how their views were in opposition to each other.
• 3. What did Du Bois mean by the “double-consciousness” of African Americans? How did he attempt to overcome that double consciousness?
• 4. Du Bois used expressions such as “the thinking classes of American Negroes.” He was, in fact, highly educated and by any measure an intellectual. Do you think that Du Bois was an elitist? Did he look down on classes of blacks who, presumably, were not “thinking”? Do you think you would have enjoyed sitting down to have lunch with a figure such as Du Bois?
• 5. Read this document in conjunction with the Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles (1905). To what extent did the latter document, written just two years later, embody principles that Du Bois articulated in The Souls of Black Folk?