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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Du Bois is the original academic weapon.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
“Here again the hope for the future depended peculiarly on careful and delicate dealing with these criminals. Their offences at first were those of laziness, carelessness, and impulse, rather than of malignity or ungoverned vicious-ness. Such misdemeanors needed discriminating treatment, firm but reformatory, with no hint of injustice, and full proof of guilt. For such dealing with criminals, white or black, the South had no machinery, no adequate jails or reformatories; its police system was arranged to deal with blacks alone, and tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a member of that police. Thus grew up a double system of justice, which erred on the white side by undue leniency and the practical immunity of red-handed criminals, and erred on the black side by undue severity, injustice, and lack of discrimination. For, as I have said, the police system of the South was originally designed to keep track of all Negroes, not simply of criminals; and when the Negroes were freed and the whole South was convinced of the impossibility of free Negro labor, the first and almost universal device was to use the courts as a means of reënslaving the blacks. It was not then a question of crime, but rather one of color, that settled a man's conviction on almost any charge. Thus Negroes came to look upon courts as instruments of injustice and oppression, and upon those convicted in them as martyrs and victims”.
- Of the sons of Master and Man : The souls of black folk by W.E.B Du Bois
.
.
This book is indeed laborious. First, because of the subject matter which dealt with the culture of race relations in the United States particularly black and white people. Second, Its hard to follow through at some part due to its language used in the book. Du bois can be vague and sometimes the language is so flowery that i kept on circled back to read the sentences again to make sure that i really comprehend the point he made. Along the way, 12 chapters to be exact, Du Bois pointed out historical facts and argued with solid examples to demonstrate how slavery and the impact of it have shaped society in the southern part of USA for both black and white people. Since this is done in a series of essays, here are the chapters with summary of what Du Bois tried to share with the readers (at least based on what i understand from my reading).
.
1. ''Of Our Spiritual Strivings'' - This chapter highlighted the African Americans struggles as their country treated them as second class citizens. Du Bois analyzed the impact and how it affected the black community in the country both physically and psychologically manner.
.
2. ''Of the Dawn of Freedom'' - This chapter entailed an emancipation history and The Freedmen’s Bureau. FYI, to those who are not American or not familiar of Freemen’s Bureau , Freedmen’s Bureau is the law that was established to help a formerly enslaved people in a southern states. Du bois helped readers understand how the Freedmen’s Bureau guided African Americans’ lives once they were freed from slavery.
.
3. ''Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others'' - Du Bois called out Booker T. Washington’s for only put his focus towards education of African Americans. According to Du Bois, It is immoral and coward to compromise on civil rights of African Americans. Du Bois strongly believed that the importance of having the right formation and responsibility of Black leadership. The voice of the community should be represented by our own people is what he’s trying to stress on in this chapter.
.
4. ''Of the Meaning of Progress'' - The reality showed to us readers in this chapter is quite eye-opening. Despite being freed , Du Bois gave his own evaluation on the progress African Americans made from the year 1861 - 1872 which is dishearteningly very little.
.
5. ''Of the Wings of Atlanta'' - The dangers of Materialism were outlined in this chapter with the relation of Modern Atlanta as an epitome in his arguments. This might spread to the South, African Americans, and America.
.
6. ''Of the Training of Black Men'' - The way to uplift the black community is education. It is imperative as education will led to the prosperity for Individual, society and the growth of the nation. Hence, Du Bois kept on pointing that being educated is necessary for every single African Americans.
.
7. ''Of the Black Belt'' & ''Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece'' - Both of these chapters stressed the negative impact of the cotton economy. What i liked about these chapters, Du Bois described the severity of this cotton plantation and the industry that was built on it affected both black and white Southerners.
.
8. ''Of the Sons of Master and Man'' - Du Bois warned that the continues segregation will pose the threat to the united states. This section was done brilliantly as he showed us readers what he has examined in regards of understanding the contacts between the races, black and white people. Yes, the co-existence is important but it must come with the right mechanism which Du Bois felt Southern States is lacking of.
.
9. ''Of the Faith of the Fathers'' - Du Bois analysed the religion of the Black South and in that analysis, he highlighted how African-American spirituality rooted here that came from Africa in the first place. He also pointed out the role of the modern black church towards the community.
.
10. ''Of the Passing of the First-Born'' - I think this chapter did stir my feelings me a little bit. Imagined being okay that your son died simply because the world is too horrible to live in. At least, from his POV, his son wont suffered due to racism and discrimination.
.
11. ''Of Alexander Crummell'' - Du Bois shared with readers, a story of of Alexander Crummell, an Episcopalian and early Pan-Africanist.
.
12. ''Of the Coming of John'' - This chapter narrated a short story about an African-American man traveled to the North for his education. Once he returned to the south, he find himself unable to reintegrate into his community.
.
13. ''The Sorrow Songs'' - The last chapter examined the importance of songs and how it tied to the African-American spirituals. It is also the embodiment of African-American culture. Du Bois believed that the reason these songs exist because it captured the emotion and expression of human experience.
.
Overall, an important read! Everyone should read it. If it’s not for a language used in this book, i would have wanted to re-read it just to understand every chapter in deeper manner.
- Of the sons of Master and Man : The souls of black folk by W.E.B Du Bois
.
.
This book is indeed laborious. First, because of the subject matter which dealt with the culture of race relations in the United States particularly black and white people. Second, Its hard to follow through at some part due to its language used in the book. Du bois can be vague and sometimes the language is so flowery that i kept on circled back to read the sentences again to make sure that i really comprehend the point he made. Along the way, 12 chapters to be exact, Du Bois pointed out historical facts and argued with solid examples to demonstrate how slavery and the impact of it have shaped society in the southern part of USA for both black and white people. Since this is done in a series of essays, here are the chapters with summary of what Du Bois tried to share with the readers (at least based on what i understand from my reading).
.
1. ''Of Our Spiritual Strivings'' - This chapter highlighted the African Americans struggles as their country treated them as second class citizens. Du Bois analyzed the impact and how it affected the black community in the country both physically and psychologically manner.
.
2. ''Of the Dawn of Freedom'' - This chapter entailed an emancipation history and The Freedmen’s Bureau. FYI, to those who are not American or not familiar of Freemen’s Bureau , Freedmen’s Bureau is the law that was established to help a formerly enslaved people in a southern states. Du bois helped readers understand how the Freedmen’s Bureau guided African Americans’ lives once they were freed from slavery.
.
3. ''Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others'' - Du Bois called out Booker T. Washington’s for only put his focus towards education of African Americans. According to Du Bois, It is immoral and coward to compromise on civil rights of African Americans. Du Bois strongly believed that the importance of having the right formation and responsibility of Black leadership. The voice of the community should be represented by our own people is what he’s trying to stress on in this chapter.
.
4. ''Of the Meaning of Progress'' - The reality showed to us readers in this chapter is quite eye-opening. Despite being freed , Du Bois gave his own evaluation on the progress African Americans made from the year 1861 - 1872 which is dishearteningly very little.
.
5. ''Of the Wings of Atlanta'' - The dangers of Materialism were outlined in this chapter with the relation of Modern Atlanta as an epitome in his arguments. This might spread to the South, African Americans, and America.
.
6. ''Of the Training of Black Men'' - The way to uplift the black community is education. It is imperative as education will led to the prosperity for Individual, society and the growth of the nation. Hence, Du Bois kept on pointing that being educated is necessary for every single African Americans.
.
7. ''Of the Black Belt'' & ''Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece'' - Both of these chapters stressed the negative impact of the cotton economy. What i liked about these chapters, Du Bois described the severity of this cotton plantation and the industry that was built on it affected both black and white Southerners.
.
8. ''Of the Sons of Master and Man'' - Du Bois warned that the continues segregation will pose the threat to the united states. This section was done brilliantly as he showed us readers what he has examined in regards of understanding the contacts between the races, black and white people. Yes, the co-existence is important but it must come with the right mechanism which Du Bois felt Southern States is lacking of.
.
9. ''Of the Faith of the Fathers'' - Du Bois analysed the religion of the Black South and in that analysis, he highlighted how African-American spirituality rooted here that came from Africa in the first place. He also pointed out the role of the modern black church towards the community.
.
10. ''Of the Passing of the First-Born'' - I think this chapter did stir my feelings me a little bit. Imagined being okay that your son died simply because the world is too horrible to live in. At least, from his POV, his son wont suffered due to racism and discrimination.
.
11. ''Of Alexander Crummell'' - Du Bois shared with readers, a story of of Alexander Crummell, an Episcopalian and early Pan-Africanist.
.
12. ''Of the Coming of John'' - This chapter narrated a short story about an African-American man traveled to the North for his education. Once he returned to the south, he find himself unable to reintegrate into his community.
.
13. ''The Sorrow Songs'' - The last chapter examined the importance of songs and how it tied to the African-American spirituals. It is also the embodiment of African-American culture. Du Bois believed that the reason these songs exist because it captured the emotion and expression of human experience.
.
Overall, an important read! Everyone should read it. If it’s not for a language used in this book, i would have wanted to re-read it just to understand every chapter in deeper manner.
Revelatory back then and still groundbreaking now. One word sums up this work, and that is Brilliant. I have read this work 6 times and each time I read it I learn something new. I call this work the foundation of understanding what it means to be black in America.
At a time when many White Americans are desperate to address their own ignorance of Black history, to seek Black perspectives, and to dwell (almost morbidly) on atrocities committed by their ancestors, reading lists have become a popular means of redress and self-flagellation. Most lists lean heavily on the work of contemporary critical race activist/scholars. A few lists feature a book from a time before social media, before Civil Rights, even before television or film. Considering the ways events of the 20th century, and the distorting lens of mass media through which we view them, have shaped the tenor and focus of discussions of race in America, this book might as well have been written by someone from another country, or another planet.
What is most striking to me about The Souls of Black Folk is its eclecticism, particularly in its style. It's really a collection of essays wrapped around a landmark work of sociology. The middle chapters of the book are likely the most well-known and well-quoted. In them, Du Bois mixes first-hand observations of Black life in the rural American South with statistics on socioeconomic conditions, education, and industrial and agricultural trends. His vantage point in history and geography gives much greater weight to the influence of post-Civil-War Reconstruction on Black life than the more obvious effects of centuries of enslavement. The visceral violence of slavery is easy to depict, particularly in media that have long depended on visceral violence to hold our attention. Harder to understand and depict, but no less important, is the botched attempt to fill the vacuum created by the abolition of slavery and the decimation of the South's economy with a new economic and legal system.
While modern scholars and writers have dwelt on this important phase of American history, most of them haven't humanized it the way that Du Bois has, in part because they can't actually talk to the folks living through it. The abstract, slow-motion tragedy of Reconstruction is brought to life through Du Bois's roadside conversations with Black farmers. Their voices aren't that different from the voices of a 21st century rural America hollowed out by a similarly haphazard global economic structure. They aren't caricatures of suffering, either. Du Bois depicts them as varied in desires and personalities as any group of people, anywhere, anytime.
Though he does let people speak for themselves at times, Du Bois also describes people in the detached, clinical voice of the late 19th century social scientist. He is a visitor from the North, by then Harvard educated, and some of his accounts of rural Southern life can seem as paternalistic and condescending as the work of his White contemporaries. Such is the price of reading social science written more than a hundred years ago. But it's this unique historical vantage point that also allows us to see the seeds of the Great Migration before they started to grow, and so to understand the roots of American urban culture as well as the wilting of agrarian life in the South.
All of this I expected to read in The Souls of Black Folk. What I didn't expect were the autobiographical chapters of Du Bois's first teaching gig in rural Tennessee, his poetic descriptions of the charm and menace of 19th century Atlanta, and an incredibly moving account of a family tragedy. He is a great writer as well as a great scholar and thinker. But the chapter that really floored me was 'Of the Coming of John,' a work of fiction hiding in a classic sociology text. When I think of a social scientist writing a fictional short story, I think of one-dimensional characters, predictable plots, and horrid dialog. This chapter had none of that. It wasn't didactic in the way that so many fictional stories "about" race have come to be.
The book concludes with an essay about the role of music in Black American life. Keep in mind this is before the popularization of recorded music (a funny quirk of the book is the inclusion of short musical scores at the start of each chapter, which, I guess, was the only way to include musical accompaniment to a mass produced work at the time). There's an anecdote about a group of gospel singers who toured America, North and South, subject to a combination of bigotry and fascination that would greet thousands of Black performers in the century to come. Even when they succeeded, the singers did so within constraints that permitted Black Americans to succeed in a few acceptable roles, reinforcing stereotypes that only became more entrenched over the years. At the same time, they did raise enough money on that tour to found a historically black university. What to make of this episode? Du Bois doesn't decide for us; only presents us with a forgotten moment in the history of race in America.
What is most striking to me about The Souls of Black Folk is its eclecticism, particularly in its style. It's really a collection of essays wrapped around a landmark work of sociology. The middle chapters of the book are likely the most well-known and well-quoted. In them, Du Bois mixes first-hand observations of Black life in the rural American South with statistics on socioeconomic conditions, education, and industrial and agricultural trends. His vantage point in history and geography gives much greater weight to the influence of post-Civil-War Reconstruction on Black life than the more obvious effects of centuries of enslavement. The visceral violence of slavery is easy to depict, particularly in media that have long depended on visceral violence to hold our attention. Harder to understand and depict, but no less important, is the botched attempt to fill the vacuum created by the abolition of slavery and the decimation of the South's economy with a new economic and legal system.
While modern scholars and writers have dwelt on this important phase of American history, most of them haven't humanized it the way that Du Bois has, in part because they can't actually talk to the folks living through it. The abstract, slow-motion tragedy of Reconstruction is brought to life through Du Bois's roadside conversations with Black farmers. Their voices aren't that different from the voices of a 21st century rural America hollowed out by a similarly haphazard global economic structure. They aren't caricatures of suffering, either. Du Bois depicts them as varied in desires and personalities as any group of people, anywhere, anytime.
Though he does let people speak for themselves at times, Du Bois also describes people in the detached, clinical voice of the late 19th century social scientist. He is a visitor from the North, by then Harvard educated, and some of his accounts of rural Southern life can seem as paternalistic and condescending as the work of his White contemporaries. Such is the price of reading social science written more than a hundred years ago. But it's this unique historical vantage point that also allows us to see the seeds of the Great Migration before they started to grow, and so to understand the roots of American urban culture as well as the wilting of agrarian life in the South.
All of this I expected to read in The Souls of Black Folk. What I didn't expect were the autobiographical chapters of Du Bois's first teaching gig in rural Tennessee, his poetic descriptions of the charm and menace of 19th century Atlanta, and an incredibly moving account of a family tragedy. He is a great writer as well as a great scholar and thinker. But the chapter that really floored me was 'Of the Coming of John,' a work of fiction hiding in a classic sociology text. When I think of a social scientist writing a fictional short story, I think of one-dimensional characters, predictable plots, and horrid dialog. This chapter had none of that. It wasn't didactic in the way that so many fictional stories "about" race have come to be.
The book concludes with an essay about the role of music in Black American life. Keep in mind this is before the popularization of recorded music (a funny quirk of the book is the inclusion of short musical scores at the start of each chapter, which, I guess, was the only way to include musical accompaniment to a mass produced work at the time). There's an anecdote about a group of gospel singers who toured America, North and South, subject to a combination of bigotry and fascination that would greet thousands of Black performers in the century to come. Even when they succeeded, the singers did so within constraints that permitted Black Americans to succeed in a few acceptable roles, reinforcing stereotypes that only became more entrenched over the years. At the same time, they did raise enough money on that tour to found a historically black university. What to make of this episode? Du Bois doesn't decide for us; only presents us with a forgotten moment in the history of race in America.
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Encountering with a slow readalong, I got a bit more out of it--and maybe will follow up with some crictical reading--than I otherwise might have done. I find it overpraised, though. From Henry Louis Gates introduction, he quotes J. Saunders Redding, saying Souls is "more history-making than historical." Gates: "It becomes so when it crosses that barrier between mainly conveying information, and primarily signifying an act of language itself" that could be experienced and enjoyed aesthetically. Didn't care for the misogyny and classism. And his takedown of Booker T. Washington remains, to me, unfair.
W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk is not only one of the most important nonfiction books of the 20th century, but it is also, arguably, my favorite. In addition to developing significant theoretical concepts such as double consciousness, Du Bois writes persuasively about Black art, folklore, and aesthetics (e.g., sorrow songs).
Formally, The Souls of Black Folk operates as a model for critical, scholarly inquiry that more academics should embrace. The Souls of Black Folk is a rich mix of philosophy, sociology, economic and cultural criticism, narrative, and aesthetics. Writing in a Du Boisian mode rejects the distant, clinical ethos of far too much academic writing.
Formally, The Souls of Black Folk operates as a model for critical, scholarly inquiry that more academics should embrace. The Souls of Black Folk is a rich mix of philosophy, sociology, economic and cultural criticism, narrative, and aesthetics. Writing in a Du Boisian mode rejects the distant, clinical ethos of far too much academic writing.