An essay by W.E.B. Du Bois on the imperial roots of American racism
FFW (2 minutes, 4 sentences minimum per image): What do I see?












Welcome
In 1893, Ida B. Wells published a pamphlet titled “The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition.” The expo, which lasted for six months, was held in Chicago and was meant to chart the trajectory of the Americas in the four hundred years since Columbus had arrived. Though a handful of African-Americans had individual exhibits at the fair, there was none specifically dedicated to the history or the accomplishments of African-Americans as a people. Wells secured contributions for the pamphlet from Frederick Douglass, the educator and journalist Irvine Garland Penn, and the lawyer and activist Ferdinand Lee Barnett.
Together with Wells, they wrote about the ways in which black life could enrich the fair’s official version of American history, which, as Wells noted in the pamphlet’s introduction, had rendered invisible the contributions of black people to the American might that the fair was intended to celebrate. “The wealth created by their industry has afforded to the white people of this country the leisure essential to their great progress in education, art, science, industry and invention,” she wrote. Wells and Douglass distributed the pamphlet at the fair’s popular Haitian Pavilion, and, eventually, the expo’s organizers held a “Negro Day.” Wells declined to participate.
Seven years later, another World’s Fair was held, in Paris. This time, the African-American lawyer Thomas Calloway worked with the expo’s American delegation, and he invited W. E. B. Du Bois to oversee an exhibition on black life. Du Bois was teaching sociology at Atlanta University, which later became Clark Atlanta University; in four months, he and his curatorial team put together a multimedia presentation that testified to the eclecticism and resilience of their community.
They conceived the exhibit as a sort of cabinet of curiosities, full of juxtapositions and visual echoes, in which you could wander and drift, zeroing in on whatever caught your eye: a small statue of Frederick Douglass; a bibliography of African-American writings, containing fourteen hundred titles; four bound volumes of more than three hundred and fifty patents secured by African-American inventors. All of these items orbited an argument about the capacity of African-Americans to withstand, and fight, injustice, with pride, dignity, and joy.
The most arresting visuals in the exhibition were handmade charts and graphics that illustrated the evolution of black life since emancipation. They featured facts and figures about population growth and political participation, educational attainment and financial clout. A line depicting the urban and rural populations of Georgia in 1890 breaks into a sudden spiral, resembling an elegant snake. Simple bar graphs are presented askew. There’s a surprising amount of open space, as though viewers are being asked to fill in the history and context that hasn’t been spelled out for them. The color schemes—predominantly red, green, yellow, and blue, with the occasional pink or purple—convey a kind of playful optimism.
Historical Context
Double Consciousness (Philosophy)
Souls of White Folk

“The Souls of White Folk,” a coda of sorts to Du Bois’s famous collection The Souls of Black Folk, appeared in an issue of the weekly political magazine The Independent soon after his arrival in New York. The brief essay was, in part, a rumination on how whiteness was a historically recent concept and how the principles espoused by the adherents of this “new religion” had infected politics, science, and theology. Du Bois was particularly appalled by the misuse of “scientific” theories to justify white supremacy.
The following year he gave a speech at the Universal Races Congress in London, a gathering of scholars and scientists devoted to the goal of promoting racial harmony and combating racism in academia. Again writing for The Independent, Du Bois reported that “the one thing that this congress could do of inestimable importance [would be to] make clear the present state of scientific knowledge concerning the meaning of the term ‘race.’” The assumptions supporting the idea of white supremacy “have become the scientific sanction for widespread and decisive political action,” and he prophetically warned the attendees of the consequences of such beliefs.
Du Bois makes a series of passing references to contemporary incidents that would have been known to his readers. From May to July in 1917 white mobs in East St. Louis, Illinois, often abetted by police and state militia, rioted, killing at least 50 black residents and leaving approximately 6,000 homeless. In May 1917 Ell Persons, a black man accused of the murder of a white girl, was taken from deputies by a mob and burned at the stake before a crowd of thousands in Memphis. In Waco, Texas, in May 1916, Jesse Washington, convicted of murdering a white woman, was taken from the courtroom by a mob, tortured, and lynched. In Estill Springs, Tennessee, on February 8, 1918, Jim McIlherron was assaulted by three white men and shot them, killing two. A black clergyman who helped him escape was killed by a mob. McIlherron was later captured, tortured, and burned alive.
Harkness Discussion Questions for The Souls of White Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois:
White identity: How has white identity been shaped by centuries of seeing oneself as a savior but operating as an oppressor?
White supremacy: How does The Souls of White Folk deconstruct white supremacy as a form of power based on race?
Colonial imperialism: How does The Souls of White Folk explain colonial imperialism?
First World War: How does The Souls of White Folk explain the First World War?
Black pride and Pan-Africanism: How does The Souls of White Folk call for Black pride and Pan-Africanism
Reflection: main takeaways from today's lesson?
Souls of Black Folk
"The Souls of Black Folk is a series of essays (some of which had been previously published) in which William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced due bóyss), 1868-1963, presents his argument about a path toward progress for African Americans: enfranchisement, political power, and education. This book, both a primary source and a literary work, provides insight about the experiences of African Americans in the early twentieth century. W.E.B. Du Bois discusses segregation and “color lines” and chronicles the “double consciousness” experienced by African Americans — “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.” He provides case studies from the Jim Crow South and he presents portraits of men who embody life “behind the veil.” He is critical of Booker T. Washington’s vocational education and accommodationist approach to segregation and racial prejudice and alludes to his faith in a “Talented Tenth” of well-educated African Americans who would overcome the 'the problem of the color line.'" (continue)
Chapter I “of our spiritual strivings”
Du Bois describes the double-consciousness experienced by blacks, the conflicting identities of
being black and American in a society dominated by racial strife and conflict. Du Bois argues
for the training and development of intellectual talents so blacks can gain acceptance in
America while adding to American ideals and culture.
Chapter II “of the dawn of freedom”
Du Bois summarizes historical events relevant to African Americans in the period immediately
following the Civil War (1865-1872). He focuses on the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau,
which served an important role in providing assistance to newly freed blacks and argues that
the greatest achievement of the Freedmen’s Bureau was the establishment of free common
schools. Despite this success, the Bureau was unable to adequately provide judicial services and
protection for African Americans in the South. Fraudulent activity and mismanagement of
financial savings and funds at the Freedmen’s Bank eventually led to the demise of the Bureau.
According to Du Bois, the Fifteenth Amendment which prohibited state and federal govern-
ments from denying citizens the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of
servitude” was the “child” of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
Chapter IV “of the Meaning of progress”
Du Bois retells his experiences of teaching in the hills of Tennessee. He begins the story
describing his efforts to establish a school and then reminisces about the friendships he made
with the members of the community. He speaks of the poverty, low wages, and poor land that
exist as a result of the “Veil” that limits and separates the members of the community from
prosperous opportunities. Upon his return to the town ten years later, Du Bois finds his old log
school house has been replaced by a “jaunty board house” and some of his students have died,
moved away, and married.
Selected Quotations
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self
through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in
amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,— 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” (p. 9).
“It was the ideal of ‘book learning’; the curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance, to know and
test the power of the cabalistic letters of the white man, the longing to know. Here 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, leading to heights high enough to
overlook life” (p. 12).
“...it [the Freedman’s Bureau] failed to begin the establishment of good-will between ex-masters
and freedmen, to guard its work wholly from paternalistic methods which discouraged self-
reliance, and to carry out to any considerable extent its implied promises to furnish the freed-
men with land” (p. 35).
“I have called my tiny community a world, and so its isolation made it; and yet there was
among us but a half-awakened common consciousness, sprung from common joy and grief…
from a common hardship in poverty, poor land, and low wages; and, above all, from the sight
of the Veil that hung between us and Opportunity” (p. 62).
“Today it makes little difference to Atlanta, to the South, what the Negro thinks or dreams or
wills. In the soul-life of the land he is to-day, and naturally will long remain, unthought of, half
forgotten; and yet when he does come to think and will and do for himself,—and let no man
dream that day will never come,—then the part he plays will not be one of sudden learning,
but words and thoughts he has been taught to lisp in his race-childhood” ( p. 71).
“The Wings of Atalanta are the coming universities of the South. They alone can bear the
maiden past the temptation of golden fruit” (p. 76).
“The function of the Negro college, then, is clear: it must maintain the standards of popular education, it must seek the social regeneration of the Negro, and it must help in the solution of problems of race contact and cooperation. And finally, beyond all this, it must develop men” (p. 95).
Harkness Discussion Questions
1. According to Du Bois, what are the “spiritual strivings” of black folks and how do these
strivings affect their sense of “double-consciousness”?
2. Du Bois identifies “book learning” as a new powerful movement replacing the “dream of
political power.” What arguments does Du Bois use to suggest that education can lead to
social mobility and racial progress?
3. Towards the end of Chapter IV, Du Bois states, “How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and
yet how human and real! And all this life and love and strife and failure,—is it the twilight
of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?” (p. 67). Evaluate this statement. Does
Du Bois seem optimistic or pessimistic about progress?
Focused Free Writes
Special thanks to Meghan Manfra and Crystal Simmons
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): According to Dr. DuBois, what are the “spiritual strivings” of African American folks and how do these strivings affect their sense of “double-consciousness”?
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): In Chapter II, Dr. DuBois wrote about the failed promises of the U.S. government in providing “forty acres and a mule” to the newly freed slaves. Had the freedmen received the land or the opportunity to become landowners, do you think Dr. DuBois would have agreed with Booker T. Washington’s advocacy for vocational training and self-sufficiency? Why or why not?
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): What values and attitudes should characterize the man educated by the African American college as envisioned by Dr. DuBois? Why were African American women excluded?
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): Dr. DuBois documents the structural and social opposition to black economic progress in the South. He also describes African American resistance to those systems. Review Chapter VIII and create a list of hindrances and responses. Do any stand out to you as being particularly detrimental or significant? Explain.
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): According to Dr. DuBois, why were religion and the church so important to African Americans during slavery and after emancipation?
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): In Chapter XI, Dr. DuBois elegantly described his experience of losing his infant son. Choose one example from the text that creates a clear impression on you about what Dr. DuBois experienced and witnessed and then describe what emotions and images are depicted.
FFW (5 min; 10 sentences): In the "The Forethought" Dr. DuBois wrote "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line: the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea." Does the color line exist today? Why or why not?