Category: The Souls of Black Folk

The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois is an embodiment of classic American literature that persists in exerting its influence upon the contemporary world. It has been recognized as an idea changing work in sociology and forms a cornerstone of African American literature. The book constitutes of fourteen chapters that serve to epitomize the influence of racism on the American society during the beginning of the twentieth century. As an African American individual, Du Bois draws from his own experiences towards efficiently utilizing the elements of ethos, pathos, and logos. The South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” The validity of the claim above is perhaps best exemplified via the thirteenth chapter of Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, namely “Of the Coming of John.” This chapter primarily serves to highlight the potential of education in eradicating the veil of racial segregation, further identifying miscellaneous repercussions associated with such development.

“Of the Coming of John” juxtaposes the experiences of a Black man with that of a White man, serving to promulgate an omnipotent view of racial segregation that persisted in the wake of slavery’s abolishment during the 1800s. Apart from being namesakes and hailing from the same place of origin, both the Black and White John had little in common. While John (Black) is depicted as being a humble individual who embodies humility and intelligence, John (White) is portrayed as a privileged man who remains irate, impatient, and ignorant. The apparent contrast between both these characters exemplifies the existence of a veil governed via social, economic, and racial dynamics, essentially serving to promulgate cultural stratification and racism. As Dubois says “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships”. The Black man pursues education by sacrificing everything else in his life, on the other hand, the White John attains education for being born in a privileged environment. The illustration as mentioned earlier is suggestive of privileged upbringing being the primary factor allowing for numerous individuals to be educated at elite academic institutions. Black John, upon having returned home, strives to contribute towards educating his community and in the process giving back what he had learned, in an attempt to educate the underprivileged. Nonetheless, his efforts are met with criticism as he is eventually alienated by his neighbors, as well as the community as a whole; “The people moved uneasily in their seats as John rose to reply… he spoke of the rise of charity and popular education… the age, he said, demanded new ideas… A painful hush skied that crowded mass. Little had they understood of what he said, for he spoke an unknown tongue”. Drawing from the discussions above, it becomes evident that education can potentially aid in achieving the maximal potential of an individual in particular, and the society in general, nonetheless, such transformations are associated with specific adverse outcomes as illustrated in the chapter.

Education as a tool for socioeconomic mobility remains a recurring theme throughout The Souls of Black Folk, best exemplified in the chapter “Of the Coming of John”. Du Bois strives to place a particular emphasis on the education of AfricanAmerican individuals and its associated positive outcomes. By empowering themselves through education, the African American individuals can potentially eradicate the existence of the veil and uplift their social standing. The White men of the American nation had persistently oppressed the African American community via the institution of slavery. According to DuBois “The opposition of Negro education in the South was at first bitter, and showed itself in ashes, insult, and blood; for the South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro”. This caused a prolonged state of submission, the African American individuals lost their ability to achieve their maximal potential. The White men sought to suppress the Black individuals by suppressing their education, “John, this school is closed. You children can go home and get to work. The white people of Altamaha are not spending their money on black folks to have their heads crammed with impudence and lies”. “Of the Coming of John” identifies education as the primary means of social mobility and character development of the individuals from African American community. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the complex dynamics of such reforms for the African Americans who had minimal opportunity upon completion of education and hence failed at realizing its associated merits.

The chapter “Of the Coming of John” serves to elucidate how little value was placed in the lives of Black men and women, and how the dominant White class constantly sought to suppress them constantly. Moreover, lack of proper education had left such individuals unaware of their predicament and susceptible to be exploited by others. Such dynamics allow for the existence of pseudo-freedom wherein the society as a whole resists cultural, social, and economic integration. Black John, upon his return back home, realizes the existence of the state above of quasi-freedom, “He had left his queer thought-world and come back to a world of motion and of men. He looked now for the first time sharply about him, and wondered he had seen so little before, He grew slowly to feel almost for the first time the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before”. It is imperative to recognize that Black John can draw upon the realization as mentioned earlier owing to his enhanced education. As such, it becomes evident Du Bois identifies education as the prominent methodology to racially uplift one’s economic and social class.

One of the most prominent and recurring themes in Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk remains education. “On the Coming of John” exemplifies various dynamics associated with enhanced educational background, and highlights its associated positive as well as negative outcomes. By eliciting an apparent contrast between Black and White Johns, Du Bois succeeds at effectively projecting the contradiction in the lives of White and Black Americans. Furthermore, the transformation in the character of Black John testifies to the potential of education in redefining individual lives. Additionally, Du Bois illustrates many repercussions associated with education, namely alienation, lack of adequate opportunities, depression, etc. Drawing from the analysis, it can be definitively stated that “Of the Coming of John” evidently embodies numerous elements of education, portrayed efficiently by many aspects of narrative fiction as a point of view, and within both characterization and dramatic structure.

Du Bois walks through the issues of slavery, labor struggles, separation, segregation, and family life. Each chapter within the story tells a different section of life involving one of the issues. One chapter talks about the history with African Americans, then goes to labor and family life (talking about Josie and the school house), then onto social separation. Du Bois talks about these issues because they are very close to his heart, him being within these many issues. Du Bois was an African American man in the 1800-1900s. He was within the issues and he grew up in a struggling society and he faced many issues himself. He wrote about these many issues to bring light to the problems. As Du Bois says “I pray you, then, receive my little book in all charity, studying my words with me, forgiving mistake and foible for sake of the faith and passion that is in me, and seeking the grain of truth hidden there”. This quote tells that the readers should take into account the words he wrote and the issues he is talking about. It also implies what he wrote is something he cares a lot about.

The tone of The Souls of the Black Folk is sorrowful with a hint of a neutral tone. Du Bois deals with the issues of social injustice, separation, and slavery. There were many sad stories about death, confusion, and abandonment. There is also a matter of fact tone with some analysis Du Bois accomplished. However, toward the end of the book on the very last page there is a hint of hope for the future. The Souls of the Black Folk has a tone of sorrow and matter of fact. Toward the end it has a positive feel. The purpose of the story is to show the struggle of the social issues and the social advances. With the use of a sorrowful tone it adds to the pathos of pulling emotion. This tells the readers to continue to push forward for social advancements and to keep with tradition but make change. As Du Bois says “It was rather a choice between suffrage and slavery, after endless blood and gold had flowed to sweep human bondage away. Not a single Southern legislature stood ready to admit a Negro, under any conditions, to the polls; not a single Southern legislature believed free Negro labor was possible without a system of restrictions that took all its freedom away”. Du Bois’ added analysis of the issues of voting and labor issues. The tone word implied with this is matter of fact and persuasive. As Du Bois says “I saw the shadow of the Veil as it passed over my baby, I saw the cold city towering above the blood-red land. I held my face beside his little cheek, showed him the starchildren and the twinkling lights as they began to flash, and stilled with an even-song the unvoiced terror of my life”. This quotation has a sorrowful feel. It is talking about the loss of the dearly loved child. Some tone words it applied is sad, mournful, and gloomy

As Du Bois says “Even so is the hope that sang in the songs of my fathers well sung. Free, free as the sunshine trickling down the morning into these high windows of mine, free as yonder fresh young voices welling up to me from the caverns of brick and mortar below — swelling with song, instinct with life, tremulous treble and darkening bass. My children, my little children, are singing to the sunshine, and thus they sing”. Throughout the whole book there is sorrow and analysis. The last chapter was the songs of tradition. Du Bois talks about his father and his song. This leaves a bit of hope within the people to keep fighting. To sing the song with hope. The tone words implied is cheerful, hopeful, and pleasant.

The first literary device: allusion Provide quotation: As Du Bois says “This deep religious fatalism, painted so beautifully in “Uncle Tom, ” came soon to breed, as all fatalistic faiths will, the sensualist side by side with the martyr”. Du Bois’ use of allusion adds to his credibility within his book. He references another famous work of literature, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Both books talk about the social issues with the African American citizens and the wrong of slavery. The references adds to the credibility because it tells that there are many other people who also care and are fighting for the issues that were occurring.

The second literary device is symbol. “And thus in the Land of the Color-line I saw, as it fell across my baby, the shadow of the Veil. Within the Veil was he born, said I; and there within shall he live, — a Negro and a Negro’s son”. Symbolism in literature a figure of speech which has a different meaning. Du Bois uses the phrase “Shadow of the veil” many times within his book. When he uses that phrase he when talking about the loss of a baby boy. He is references death as well as the significant separation.

The first RD is Hypophora. As Du Bois said, “What have been the successive steps of this social history and what are the present tendencies”. What does it add to the work? This use of Hypophora is to raise a question or two tell the reader what he is intending to answer. Telling the reader about the topics to come. In this specific case Du Bois will talk about history also relating to today’s society.

The second RD Anaphora Provide quotation. As Du Bois said, “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”. The use of an anaphora in the phrase allows the reader to focus on the important events that are necessary in order to heal the problems of the social separation. Du Bois tells his readers that there is a must that needs to occur, not accepting anything lower.

Abstract

Living among the Whites has caused many problems for the Blacks throughout the history. African Americans, who are African in their roots and American in their life, as opposite races, are segregated from the White’s societies due to their colored skin. They are considered as uncivilized and lowbrow people who do not have equal rights to the Whites. Thus, racial segregation acting like a veil, as Du Bois refers to, brings African Americans a dual identity which leads to their double consciousness. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, written in 1960, further to its depiction of racial prejudice and discrimination issues of American society in 1930’s, pictures the life of a minor character named Calpurnia as a black woman who lives with a white family and has the role of a mother for the white children. Therefore, living among the Whites and the Blacks at the same time leads her to a double consciousness, which is the result of segregation. Thus, using W. E. B. Du Bois’ concepts of ‘veil’ and ‘double consciousness’, in this study it has been tried to investigate the inner as well as the outer truth of African Americans’ life and their merged identity under the impact of racism.

Index Terms–double consciousness, Du Bois, identity, segregation, To Kill a Mockingbird

I. Introduction

Racism as an issue has been a matter of fact among the human societies since the end of the 19th century. Black people were predetermined throughout the history by the racist societies due to their skin color. They are considered as the inferior creatures who are socially, politically, and culturally deprived of their rights as human beings. Likewise, Prejudice, injustice, fanaticism, and discrimination have always existed throughout the history so that many innocent individuals were the victims of these concepts. Cultural, gender, and racial stereotypes are indeed the causes of such immoral acts. People living in a society are most of the time under the pressure of being judged by others whether truly or false. In this case, people of opposite races, females, and low-class members are mostly under the attention. Therefore, Cultural, social, and racial superiority has been a kind of instrument to oppress the inferiors. These inferior people, especially people in colored skins, then, are the subjects of prejudice and injustice. Thus, their rights as human-beings are ignored, their services and efforts are unnoticed and they are most of the time treated unfairly. They are segregated from the Whites’ societies and are treated as slaves because they are seen as savages and lowbrow people in the eyes of the Whites regardless of their righteousness and humanity. African Americans are the main victims of segregation who are facing with the problem of double consciousness due to their dual life and merged identity because of being both African and American.

Accordingly, prejudice and injustice toward innocent members of a society, especially Blacks, has been the main concerns of many writers and has prompted them to write for their rights. Unfortunately, despite the enormous struggle of black and white writers, the inequality rights of individuals based on their social, cultural, gender, and racial differences is still alive. These individuals, who are at most of the time from the low-classes of the society, are in the eyes of the others as the subjects of any criminals done in their surroundings, regardless of their innocence. Whereas writing and literature is a good weapon in eliminating wrong believes and behaviors toward such blameless individuals, teaching moral lessons and developing ethical codes in societies to prevent people from judging their fellowmen is the purpose of Nelle Harper Lee by writing To Kill a Mockingbird. Nelle Harper Lee, a white novelist, is the one who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) to express her point of view toward racial and cultural prejudice throughout moral codes of behavior. She also has defended the rights of black people as humans in her second novel Go Set a Watchman (2015). Harper Lee in her two novels, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, attempted to demonstrate how people of different race, culture, and class should be responsible to respect each other and coexist in the world regardless of their differences. She, in the heart of her To Kill a Mockingbird, depicts the life of a Black woman, Calpurnia, who can be considered as a victim of segregation with a dual life. Calpurnia, who is the maid of a white family, lives a dual life as being both African and American. She lives among the Blacks and the Whites at the same time and this oscillation brings her a sense of double consciousness which can be seen in her language and behavior, a double consciousness which is the result of segregation of the Negroes from the Whites’ society.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, which has been recognized as the second moral book after Bible in America and has a widespread popularity around the world, Du Bois’ concepts of ‘veil’ and ‘double consciousness’ can be seen obviously. W. E. B. Du Bois, who is himself a Black, in his The Souls of Black Folks, fights against racism and introduces the concept of ‘veil’ which functions like a wall and segregates the Blacks from the Whites. In Du Bois’ words this veil, which is made by the Whites, brings a sense of double consciousness for the African Americans which finally leads them to a merged identity. Observing Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, this study will focus on the dual life and merged identity of Calpurnia, as a Negro woman in the story, based on Du Bois’ concepts of ‘veil’, as the wall of segregation, and ‘double consciousness’.

II. Discussion

Racism has existed among the groups of people since the very beginning of the people’s communication and therefore can be considered as the part of human nature. W. E. B. Du Bois in ‘Of the Training of the Black Men’ points to the Whites’ belief that God has created the Negroes as simple and ‘clownish’ creatures to serve them. Therefore, Whites know themselves as the master race and superior to the Blacks. They treat the Blacks as inferior people and segregate them from their own society so that the Blacks are kept behind the wall of segregation, social injustice and oppression. Lois Tyson in his Critical Theory Today says, ‘Racism refers to the unequal power relations that grow from the sociopolitical domination of one race by another and that result in systematic discriminatory practices (for example, segregation, domination, and persecution)’ (2006, p. 360). Likewise, racism

makes it more difficult for black men to earn a living or spend their earnings as they will; it gives them poorer school facilities and restricted contact with cultured classes; and it becomes, throughout the land, a cause and excuse for discontent, lawlessness, laziness, and injustice (qtd in Katz and Sugrue, 2001, p. 205).

Consequently, Blacks are deprived of their rights in the Whites’ societies and are separated physically and psychologically just because of their colored skin, which is the sign of their inferiority in the eyes of white people. In fact, the Whites believe that ‘human races were not just different from one another, but that some were superior to others’ (Moore, 2008, p. XI) and therefore can dominate the inferiors.

W. E. B. Du Bois, a sociologist and Pan-Africanist, from the late 19th century until his death devoted his life to refuting the superiority of one race over the other. Du Bois himself was a victim of prejudice because of his black skin, thus he endeavored all along his life to fight against racism and demanded equal civil rights for African Americans. He was such a prominent figure in the discussion of racism that his work, The Souls of Black Folk, has gained the position of the political Bible for the Negro race. And all creative Afro-American literature has been inspired by it in some degrees (Edwards, 2007, p. Vii). Du Bois in his collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, which is a seminal work in African American literature, speaks about his perspectives on the effects of racism and addresses the problem of institutionalized racism as a veil which has segregated the Blacks from the Whites like a wall and has prevented the human nature of the Blacks to be seen by the Whites. Furthermore, Du Bois argues that the veil brings African Americans a dual identity which leads to their double consciousness.

A. Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 but set it in the 1930s, the time of the Great Depression, to remind the readers of the socioeconomic hardship of those era and also the historic Scottsboro Trial, which Lee has fictionalized it in the story through the character of Tom Robinson who is an innocent Negro accused of raping a white girl. She wrote this novel on the purpose of showing the immoral aspects of cultural, social, racial, and gender discriminations and indeed tried to invite people to coexist with one another despite any differences among them without prejudice and injustice. On the year which Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, it was immediately successful and won the Pulitzer Prize, it has become a classic of modern American Literature and still is a successful and readable novel for 55 years after its publication. This novel also was adapted into an Oscar winning movie in 1962. Further to its depiction of racial prejudice and discrimination issues of American society in 1930’s, To Kill a Mockingbird pictures the life of a minor character named Calpurnia as a black woman who lives with a white family and has the role of a mother for the white children.

In Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Black Orpheus”, Sartre uses the image of the musician Orpheus in ancient Greek mythology to extoll black poets and points out that “the negro’s tireless descent into himself makes me think of Orpheus going to claim Eurydice from Pluto (Sarte 1948). To Orpheus, music is the translation or abstraction of life. He uses the music to show his deeply miss of his wife. In Hebert Marcuse’s “Eros and Civilization” (1955), Marcuse thinks further that the music represents the freedom of pursuing the subject and the object of libido, the self-affirmation, and the yearning for the new order. In W.E.B Du Bois, the music of black people also has the same appeal. The sadness that appears in the music contains hope, healing, and the power of redemption. It is the affirmation of the self and the resistance of the depression on the reality.

In Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois thinks the spirituals is one of the most important parts of black people’s culture. The spirituals are the way for black people to survive. There are fourteen chapters in Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”. Each chapter is composited by three parts. The first part is the poems from white people or the excerpts of folk music from black people. The second part is the parts of the musical scores of the spirituals. The third part is the texts. The last chapter of the “The Souls of Black Folk” is “The Sorrow Songs”. Du Bois clears up the mystery as he tells where most of the musical scores of the spirituals he uses come from. Although Du Bois shows clearly that the spirituals are the important symbol of cultural achievements, he does not explain clearly where the spirituals come from and why he chooses this spiritual with this song or poem. The unique use of the spirituals not only brings the aesthetic experience of reading but also includes special connotation.

At the beginning of Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois interprets the problem that is about identities of Afro-Americans. Their skin color is just like the “veil”, and the “veil” separates the Afro-Americans from the whites. This makes the Afro-Americans have the “double consciousness”. “One ever feels his two-ness, – 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.” (Du Bois 1903). The use of the spirituals gives the interpretation of the “veil” and the “double consciousness” through the contents and forms. The spirituals make the whole book as a work of art and leave me lots of spaces to think about. The metaphorical meaning in the spirituals, the racial memory, and the innovations and the fusions of the spirituals are three important parts in Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”.

Metaphorical meaning in the spirituals Du Bois’s unique use of the spirituals in the “The Souls of Black Folk” contains metaphorical meaning. Before discussing the metaphorical meaning in the spirituals, we should know why Du Bois uses the spirituals instead of some other music forms? In “Slave Songs transcend Sorrow”, it mentions that “spirituals are recognized as some of the world’s most authentic spiritual utterances since David penned the Psalms.” (Slave Songs transcend Sorrow 2010). Spirituals contain fewer negative black culture emotions. Du Bois’s using of the spirituals tries to show the most representative and finest aspect of the black culture. In Eric J. Sundquist’s “To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature”, Sundquists mentions that “Du Bois deleted the lyrics so as not to place the dialect of slave culture before his readers.” (Sundquists 493). Most of the lyrics in the spirituals have thick Negro dialect and special features of spoken language. In this case, by comparison, including the lyrics in the spirituals is a little bit vulgar.

At the beginning of each chapter in the “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois quotes the poems that are written by the white people and puts the spirituals in the following. From my point of view, doing in this way, Du Bois wants to put the spirituals in the same position of the poems in order to show that there is equality between black culture and white culture. In Du Bois’s “In the Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois does not show the lyrics of the spirituals that he uses. If we only think about that not containing the lyrics of the spirituals is a way to separate the unnecessary things, we might miss the meanings that Du Bois gives to the spirituals. “The Souls of Black Folk” annotates that black people in the “veil” have “double consciousness”. The difficult situation causes black people not to have the opportunity to express their feelings. The spirituals are important ways for them to communicate with this world. “I know that these music is the articulate message of the slave to the world.” (Du Bois 1903). “The songs are indeed the shifting of centuries; the music is far more ancient than the words, and in it we can trace here and there signs of development.” (Du Bois 1903). Black people pass down these spirituals through generations. Later generations might do not understand the meaning of the lyrics, but they will definitely know the meaning of the music. The spirituals without the lyrics are the metaphor that all black people can understand. There exists the sadness and the hope that is unutterable. On the other hand, there is a fine line between the literature and the music and between the lyrics and the music scores. This fine line comes from the line between black people and white people. For white people who do not have the same experience as the black people or listen to the spirituals, the music scores are just the music scores. But for the black people, the incomplete music scores and invisible lyrics seem to be complaining that the sound of black people to find freedom and equality cannot be heard. Black people in American society are just like the lyrics and music scores that are incomplete and silent.

The value of the spirituals in the “The Souls of Black Folk” is not only about its metaphoric meanings, but also its relationship with the poems and the texts from each chapter. For example, the spiritual in the first chapter is called “Nobody knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” which is one of the most famous and most characteristic black people’s spiritual (Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen n.d.). The song is about black slaves who have suffered from hardship tell God about their circumstances and hope the God will help them. The music is deep and slow. The music works with the poem and the text, and they all together set the tone for the “The Souls of Black Folk”. In the first chapter, the first part is the poem from Arthus Symons’s “The Crying of Water”. The poem is about the sea keeps “crying”. This represents that the narrator’s heart is in tears. The third part of the first chapter is the text. Du Bois also narrates that the black people are in the Ages of slavery. Black people are like a lonely boat in a tossing, thoughtless sea. The poem and the text share the same main idea with the spiritual “Nobody knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”. Just as what Du Bois discusses in the last chapter when America refuses to keep the promise that is dividing lands to free black people. Then an old man in the crowd starts to sing this song, and people around him are moved (Du Bois 1903). This is the suffering that Afro-Americans experience. When black people were brought to America by the first Dutch colonists, black people started to bear something that they could not bear with. Even though Lincoln announced to abolish slavery, freedom and equality are still far away from the black people. Although black people’s hearts are full of holes, they still need to persist. This is a painful shared memory, and there exists innumerable twists and runs that are hard to express and nobody cares. The metaphoric meaning of the spirituals builds a bridge between the words and the music, and the bridges extend to black people’s history and memory.

The Spirituals and The Racial Memory Du Bois’s use of the spirituals shows that the spirituals not only bring flowing vitality to African-American History but also challenge the authority of white people’s history. For the Afro-American, although the time of slavery has passed away, the bitter memory gets into the bloodstream of their bodies. Du Bois thinks that “His ancestors and their descendants have had “a common history”; have suffered a common disaster and have one long memory” (Gillman 2003). The spirituals fill time and space. They do not belong to a specific time period. They connect past, now, and future and they are Afro-Americans’ long-term memory. For a long period of time, people thought that black people do not have the history. The origin of this kind of thought can be traced back to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In his “The History of Philosophy”, he mentions that Africa does not have the history. Hegel remarked that Africa “is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit.” (Hegel 1956). Hegel’s idea has a big influence on western scholars, and Hegel’s idea was viewed as the “golden rule”. In this case, this gives rise to the discrimination of race. Western society intentionally ignores black history and depreciates the culture of black people. Du Bois uses his own experiences and the spirituals to create history and identity for the black people.

In the last chapter of Du Bois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois always remembers a spiritual that his grandfather’s grandmother song (Du Bois 1903). The song is: “Do bana coba, gene me, gene me! Do bana coba, gene me, gene me! Ben d’nuli, nuli, nuli, nuli, ben d’le.” Although the spiritual has been sung for hundreds of years and the meaning of the song has been obscure, for Du Bois and his family, they can understand the spirits of this spiritual. Nora Pierre says that true memory “has taken refuge in gestures and habits, in skills passed down by unspoken traditions, in the body’s inherent self-knowledge, in unstudied reflexes and ingrained memories.” (Pierre 1989). The spirituals have passed from father to son in the black families for a long time. This is racial memory. Du Bois uses spirituals to show the feelings and statutes of black people. In the “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois defines the spirituals as the sorrow of songs. This means that most spirituals’ tunes are sad. “Mother and child are sung, but seldom father fugitive and weary wanderer call for pity and affection, but there is little of wooing and wedding; the rocks and the mountains are well-known, but home is unknown.” (Du Bois 1903). Slavery leaves shades in black people’s hearts and creates unrecoverable damage to the relationship of African-American families. Many black slaves do not know who their fathers are. They do not have normal love and marriage. They even do not know where they belong. Using spirituals to express black people’s sadness seems to be a tradition. The spirituals explain how the sadness slowly becomes the collective memory and emotional appeal of black people. According to Maurice Halbwachs’s “Collective Memory”, he mentions that we keep our memory of each period. These memory appears again and again. Through memory is just like through some continuous relationship. Our identity will be preserved forever (Halbwachs 1925). The spirituals are not simply music, but more like the collective memory. The spirituals are part of the inner selves of black people and are the most important part of their life. National or social memory is the reconstruction of the past. Du Bois uses spirituals to bring back the memory of the past and also write down the current black history. Most of the spirituals are depicted in sad feelings. The missing lyrics is in the memory of black people and is also between the lines in each chapter. That is, although it seems that black people get freedom and obtain equality, black people are badly bound in the chains of poverty and ignorance.

In “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois does not only focus on describing the painful memory that black people have in the past. Du Bois uses texts, poems, musical scores and some other methods to show the real life after the civil war ended. In the “Of the Meaning of Progress”, Du Bois tells the experience that he taught school in the hills of Tennessee ten years ago. After ten years, he went back to school. He saw lots of “progress”, but these “progress” for Du Bois is ugly. “Josie was dead. The Lawrences have gone. The Burkes held a hundred acres, but they were still in debt…” (Du Bois 1903). These “progress” is more like changes. Black people’s life is changing, and at the same time, the spirituals are changing (negrospirituals n.d). The changing spirituals show that black people’s life is changing, but the tone of the music is still sad and helpless. The missing lyrics is the sadness that black people cannot say. The Innovations and Fusions of Spirituals Du Bois speaks his mind about the value of the spirituals. He thinks that black people bring three gifts to America: stories and songs, sweat and strength, and spirits (Du Bois 1903). If we only think about recording and transmitting the spirituals, what Du Bois does is limited.

In the “The Souls of Black Folk”, Du Bois only shows a piece of spiritual in each chapter, but Du Bois changes its way to show them. This lets the value of spirituals break the musical boundaries. He puts the spirituals with the texts. Du Bois’s innovative use of the spirituals breaks traditional writing style, and this makes racial memory appear on the paper. Those jumping notes are like the weep of black people. The spirituals become the racial memory that is shown on the paper, and the texts become the oral language that can be heard and felt. Du Bois’s use of the spirituals brings life and imagination to the texts. On the other hand, Du Bois’s parallel use the spirituals and the poetries from white people improves the level of art of black people. But more than that, this kind of parallel does not make something wrong. When Du Bois praises the traditional culture of black people, he does not eliminate or depreciate white culture. Du Bois presents the characteristics of black culture which can be heard and felt and creates the balance and equality between western written culture and oral traditional culture of black people. As what Du Bois mentioned in the “The Souls of Black Folk”, “I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line, I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas … I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil.” (Du Bois 1903). Here “I” does not mean Du Bois himself. Instead “I” is the black history. The unique use and explanation of spirituals make readers feel that the black culture can have the same rich connotation and charm as the white culture. In the “The Souls of Black Folk”, poems, spirituals and songs mix, and support with each. In the “The Souls of Black Folk”, although Du Bois does not show the pieces of spirituals with the lyrics, this does not imply that the lyrics are not important. Instead, the separation of the lyrics from the pieces of spirituals highlights the importance of the lyrics. At first, some of the lyrics of the spirituals have been missed or changed in the process of spreading. But what have left in the end is actually what black people have experienced and have wished. It displays rich imagination and the wisdom of the metaphor of black people. In conclusion, Du Bois uses spirituals to express racial pain and to open the veil between black people and white people. The spirituals that carry the pain show lofty artistic value. They have the power to heal the hearts of black people. The combination of the spirituals and texts presents the black history, racial memory, and reality. The best way to understand the culture and tradition is to use the appropriate way to let them come into our lives and let them show their energy.

For this month’s monthly response, I decided to analyze the readings “We Wear The Mask” and ‘The Forethought’ from “The Souls of Black Folk.” Both readings share the themes of the reality of being a Black American, and the subconscious adaptation to the pains attached to it. Although one is a poem and the other is an expert from a work of literature composed of essays discussing the sociology of Black Americans, both give readers insight to the real feelings and thoughts of Black Americans.

To begin, the poem “We Wear The Mask” metaphorically compares the facade that Black Americans put on every day to function in America to a mask. It brings to the attention of readers that African Americans have learned to “wear a mask” that hides the real internal pain they feel attached to just being Black in America. The poem also points out that the world seems to act oblivious to our pain because of the fact that we wear the mask so well. Even when we take the mask off from time to time, they seem to still not see our pain. The mask can symbolize our smiles, humor, art, talent, or hard work that they still see us produce all the time, but they don’t realize that all of it is birthed from the pain that they seem to be oblivious to. This poem made me reflect upon how we as black people always have to be the strong ones and suppress our true pain so we don’t seem like we are making ourselves out to be the victims that our reality already says we are. As I reflect even more, it could be possible that the Black community’s feelings towards mental health or the lack thereof is attached to this behavior of covering our real pain that we have adopted through generations.

Moving forward, in the excerpt ‘The Forethought’ from “The Souls of Black Folk”, James Baldwin discusses the realities that bring the pain that Black Americans feel the need to cover up. He mentions double consciousness, his notable concept to describe the struggle of being born Black and American and the journey of figuring out how to balance the two roles as you go through life (689). The feeling of having to separate the two things that make you who you are can bring you pain alone. Even as a Black American child, it doesn’t take long for you to realize you are seen as different in a negative light or as Baldwin describes it, “a problem”(689). Baldwin also brings attention to the fact that Black Americans began to obtain education as a way to cover the pain of that reality, realizing it was one of the only ways they were going to be able to succeed in America, but the more they were educated about how they were really seen by the rest of the world, the pain they felt they needed to mask intensified (691).

After analyzing and investigating the deeper meanings of the readings, I realized that myself, and other current Black Americans can still relate to the sentiments expressed. An example of a current form of masking is feeling the need to code switch between black and “corporate” American vernacular in different settings. Also, subconsciously feeling the need to put yourself in a smaller box when around the other races of the American population because you don’t want to make yourself seem too great and make the others uncomfortable. Furthermore, this literature is significant to understanding African American history because it makes you realize that our sense of stability and belonging in America has been built upon hiding our true innermost selves.