The Souls Of A Black Folk

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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The novel, The Souls of Black Folk, written by the infamous, W.E.B Du Bois, is outstanding. The story commences with a grief-stricken tone of personal sovereignty.

Chapter one seemed to be the most captivating of all. To begin, the presence of the shadow leads one to understand that there is a burden that is constantly present with the African American community during the post war era. The African community undergoes the process of seeing the world through another society's eyes. According to Du Bois, this is not by choice because this portion of society has undergone continuing discrimination since the end of the war. The influence the kkk, voter's rights, and the struggle to obtain some stability seem to continually be ingredients to the constant uphill battle that Negroes faced at this time. At the conclusion of chapter one, a particular quote caught my interest, it states: "We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes; there is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folklore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.

Will America be poorer if she replace ... her coarse and cruelty with loving jovial good-humor? Or her vulgar music with the soul of the Sorrow Songs?" ( page 6) This quote places a large amount of importance on music and its origin. Many people enjoy music, and music such as the blues has been around for centuries and that is what Du Bois refers to as "Sorrow Songs." During the time...