W.E.B. Du Bois "Souls of Black Folk"

Throughout history, African Americans have always been degraded and treated unfairly by races which have always believed themselves superior to them. During the antebellum period, African Americans served as slaves in the American economy to produce its vast production of cotton. These slaves were viewed as nothing more than property, which in fact had no rights, lacked intellect, and were undeserving of the American dream. After the Emancipation of slaves, African Americans were still being discriminated against by the resentful white race that was unwilling to recognize these former slaves as their equals. In W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Souls of Black Folk,” Du Bois was able to portray and depict the many hardships that this race of people faced as a freed population. Through the use of Logic and description, Du Bois introduced the reader with what the African American people dealt with during that time period.
Du Bois’s use of Logic engaged the reader with a better understanding of what the African American people went through after their Emancipation. In the story, Du Bois first talks about an instance in his youth when he came to realize the importance that skin color had on society during this time period. He stated, “I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out of their world by a vast veil.” [pg 8] In this quote, Du Bois clearly recognized that this distinction of him separates him from the rest. The color of his skin forces him to be excluded from the rest of society. This reasoning of Du Bois helps him view the type of the social order that he was living in during that time period, and the role that it played in his life, through the observations that he made when others treated him with disrespect and disregard. As Du Bois explains “slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice…” [pg 11] Through Du Bois’s reasoning and understanding he comes to realize that in fact slavery is the reason of all the inhumanities his people had to go through. Its sole existence polluted the minds of the American society into believing that the black people living in their country were after all inferior to the whites. Du Bois’s logic in both of these cases portrays this image of hostility between the two races in the American Society during this time period. It sets ground for the reader the idea of difference and lack of equality between the two people.
Du Bois introduced the reader with what the African American people dealt with during that time period through the use of description. In “Souls of Black Folk,” Du Bois sympathized with the African American that was constantly being degraded and debased by the white people in the American society. He shows these emotions through his harsh tone against the Nation that has done nothing in its part to truly provide his people with a sense of freedom. Du Bois portrays this idea of suffrage, despair, hopelessness, and gloom that resulted from this treatment. He states “The nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.” [pg 12] What Du Bois is trying to say in this quote, is that Emancipation did not truly free the African American. He portrays the American nation as one lacking peace, probably from all the distortion that the continuous hostility and prejudice between the two races of blacks and whites had caused on the country. Du Bois then goes on describing the African Americans hunt for freedom, even after Emancipation. He quotes, “The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed every barely to elude their grasp,-like a will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host.” [pg 12] Here, Du Bois uses a simile comparing the grasp for freedom with a will-o’-the-wisp. This description helps the reader better portray and depict the real type of Emancipation that the nation provided for the African Americans, one that truly set no one free. He describes this search of freedom as “vain,” which gives the reader a notion of ineffectiveness, all for nothing. Then Du Bois goes into detail about the benefits that were being so difficult to get a hold of and he approaches this with the simile stated above. This just provides the reader with imagery by comparing the two ideas, the fading lights of fire in a will-o’-the-wisp to the advantages that always seem to escape the hands of the freed blacks in the country.
Overall, through the use of Logic and description, Du Bois was able to expose and illustrate the many sufferings that the African American people faced once they were emancipated. These many sufferings, which resulted from the denial of the whites to the African Americans emancipation, truly hurt this race of people. Since the whites always viewed themselves as superior to the black population, this acceptance of the equality was difficult to grasp. This then caused the many hardships that the African Americans were facing at that time, like the inability to truly gain freedom, equality, and happiness. After all, “We are diseased and dying, cried the dark host; we cannot write our vote is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve?” [pg 15]