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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
“For this much all men know: despite compromise, war, and struggle, the Negro is not free.”
Whew, what a read.
Despite this being published in 1903, this book is still extremely relevant, and will probably always be relevant, if we’re being honest with ourselves. This is evidenced by the above quote, one of many like it in this anthology of essays.
Definitely something to read and re-read.
Whew, what a read.
Despite this being published in 1903, this book is still extremely relevant, and will probably always be relevant, if we’re being honest with ourselves. This is evidenced by the above quote, one of many like it in this anthology of essays.
Definitely something to read and re-read.
reflective
sad
medium-paced
A beautiful and tragic book on the power of folk songs as a true reflection of the black soul & the perils of double-consciousness.
informative
slow-paced
“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, —this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self…He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American.”
“Yet the soul-hunger is there, the restlessness of the savage, the wail of the wanderer, and the pliant is put in one little phrase: ‘My soul wants something that’s new.’”
“Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope — a faith in the ultimate justice of things.”
“And the traveler girds himself, and sets his face toward the Morning, and goes his way.”
“Yet the soul-hunger is there, the restlessness of the savage, the wail of the wanderer, and the pliant is put in one little phrase: ‘My soul wants something that’s new.’”
“Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope — a faith in the ultimate justice of things.”
“And the traveler girds himself, and sets his face toward the Morning, and goes his way.”
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
I'm not sure I've ever read a book of essays but this isn't a bad one to start with if indeed it is my first.
This book is largely a record of its time, while also remaining relevant to america today. That's a bit of a cliche, especially with regard to anything dealing with social justice, but Du Bois points out many reasons why this book remains relevant, even a century later.
The thrust of his arguments are about labor, which is interesting considering how often politicians and pundits and even journalists try to divorce race and class in discussions of one or the other. But Du Bois accurately points out that labor is the driving force behind oppression and emancipation. Whites controlled labor during slavery and also during Reconstruction, leading to mass disenfranchisement and flight from rural areas, where duplicitous and largely illegal practices were enacted to steal the labor from black people once out of bondage.
Essay after essay deals with this, and these are the most interesting essays to me. The way he ties labor to education the education system and its exploitation and defunding, how after the Civil War there were southerners who could not conceive of a black person being guiltless and how there were northerners who could not see southern whites as anything but exploiters and thieves, and how this led to much of the animosity that persists even still.
This book is also a reminder that even the best among us have blind spots. Du Bois, at various points, has choice words for Jewish people, who he seems to see as duplicitous exploiters of the worst kind. He's also a very religious man who is especially harsh on morality that falls out of the christian mold. He finds christian sexual morality as a true sign of personage, and disparages any black people who have a freer sense of sexuality.
Still, the book is mostly good and enlightening.
This book is largely a record of its time, while also remaining relevant to america today. That's a bit of a cliche, especially with regard to anything dealing with social justice, but Du Bois points out many reasons why this book remains relevant, even a century later.
The thrust of his arguments are about labor, which is interesting considering how often politicians and pundits and even journalists try to divorce race and class in discussions of one or the other. But Du Bois accurately points out that labor is the driving force behind oppression and emancipation. Whites controlled labor during slavery and also during Reconstruction, leading to mass disenfranchisement and flight from rural areas, where duplicitous and largely illegal practices were enacted to steal the labor from black people once out of bondage.
Essay after essay deals with this, and these are the most interesting essays to me. The way he ties labor to education the education system and its exploitation and defunding, how after the Civil War there were southerners who could not conceive of a black person being guiltless and how there were northerners who could not see southern whites as anything but exploiters and thieves, and how this led to much of the animosity that persists even still.
This book is also a reminder that even the best among us have blind spots. Du Bois, at various points, has choice words for Jewish people, who he seems to see as duplicitous exploiters of the worst kind. He's also a very religious man who is especially harsh on morality that falls out of the christian mold. He finds christian sexual morality as a true sign of personage, and disparages any black people who have a freer sense of sexuality.
Still, the book is mostly good and enlightening.
This book definitely took a while for me to get through due to the dense content—but the history you learn is more than worth it! DuBois so effortlessly paints these pictures of life as a Black American post-Civil War—the resilience and pain felt by so many. The essays include days of his own life as well as old stories of a black figure. Regardless, each essay is filled with heartbreaking truths about the realities of black folks living in this country. So much history, so many explanations as to not only HOW Blacks got where we are, but WHY we started thinking and behaving the way we do. He explains these things without even trying to. Only reading this classic work will show you what I mean.