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The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
Introduced Double Consciousness, The Veil, and The Color Line; focused on Black identity and struggle in America.
Used standpoint theory, described lived experience as a Black man in the United States
What is the Talented Tenth (Book)?
DuBois’ idea that the top 10% of educated and skilled Black individuals should lead the race to progress.
Advocated for higher education, leadership, and activism among Black elites.
Opposed Booker T. Washington’s emphasis on vocational training over liberal arts education.
What is the main argument of The Talented Tenth (1903)?
Black progress depends on cultivating a leadership class.
Education and moral development are crucial for uplifting the Black community.
The Talented Tenth should mentor and guide the less fortunate.
What is Black Reconstruction in America about?
A Marxist analysis of the Reconstruction era (1860-1880).
Argues that Black labor was central to the U.S. economy and that Reconstruction was a missed opportunity for true democracy.
Challenges the racist narrative that Reconstruction was a "failure" due to Black incompetence.
Refutes the idea that Reconstruction was a failure.
Shows that Black Americans actively participated in democracy, built schools, and fought for economic rights.
Blames white elites and Northern capitalists for betraying Reconstruction.
What were DuBois’ findings in The Philadelphia Negro?
Systemic racism limited economic opportunities for Black Philadelphians.
Housing segregation and job discrimination kept Black people in poverty.
Challenged the idea that Black poverty was due to personal failure rather than structural issues.
In the Philadelphia Negro, he tried hard to let the data, and to a lesser degree the people, speak for themselves. His own “voice” is quite muted and dispassionate. Although he was critical of white America for what it was doing to black Americans, he was equally hard on the latter, making it clear that they bore some of the responsibility for their plight.
What is volksgeist?
A German concept meaning "spirit of the people", linked to national identity and culture.
Used to explain why different societies develop distinct traditions.
Du Bois argued that each nation or race has a unique spirit, which emerges in cultural expressions.
DuBois opposed racist applications of Volksgeist, which were used to justify white superiority.
Like the method of verstehen (see Weber, Chapter 8), this was a kind of sociology that used cultural expressions to deepen our understanding of a people’s experience of the world
What is DuBois’ Connection to Marx?
Adopted Marxist analysis to examine race and class oppression.
Saw Black labor exploitation as central to capitalism.
Later works became increasingly socialist, especially Black Reconstruction.
Starts out his academic career conservative, then moves closer to marxism towards the end of his career.
Draws on Marxist-Leninism, and the program of the Communist party.
Expands understanding of the world and changes theories as he goes…
What are grades 1,2,3,4 of the black socio-economic hierarchy?
1) Elite & Educated – Wealthier, educated Black professionals.
Respectable families earning enough income to live well
2) Skilled Workers & Entrepreneurs – Black business owners, craftsmen, and teachers.
Respectable working class with steady paying work
3) Working-Class Laborers – Factory workers, sharecroppers, and domestic servants.
The poor and very poor without enough steady income
4) The Marginalized & Submerged – Unemployed, imprisoned, and deeply impoverished individuals.
The “lowest class of criminals, prostitutes and loafers; the ‘submerged tenth’
What is the submerged and talented tenth?
Talented Tenth – DuBois’ idea that 10% of Black leaders (scholars, activists, professionals) must uplift the race.
Submerged Class – The most marginalized Black Americans, lacking education and opportunity.
What is the guiding hundredth?
A smaller, highly elite group within the Talented Tenth.
Scholars, intellectuals, and political leaders who shape social change.
In his later work, it was no longer enough for these leaders to be talented in a general sense; they also had to be experts in economics and its effect on African Americans. The “Talented Tenth” became the “Guiding Hundredth,” and they had to be willing to “sacrifice and plan such economic revolution in industry and just distribution of wealth, as would make the rise of our group possible” (Du Bois, 1948/1995:350).
What are the benevolent despots?
At this early stage in his work, Du Bois retained some faith in whites, strong and benevolent leaders, and in capitalism.
Du Bois did not long hold out much hope for aid from the benevolent despot or, more specifically, from the capitalist. Indeed, in a later analysis of the economy of the post–Civil War South, he pointed an accusatory finger at northern capitalists.
Wealthy white reformers who claimed to help Black people but maintained power over them, incapable of changing people’s racial ignorance.
Example: Northern philanthropists funding Black schools but dictating curriculum.
Du Bois argued that a benevolent despot might have sought to deal with the lack of training of African Americans and the discrimination practiced against them. However, there was “no benevolent despot, no philanthropist, no far-seeing captain of industry to prevent the Negro from losing even the skill he had learned or to inspire him by opportunities to learn more” (Du Bois, 1899/1996:127).
The internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society, feeling both Black and American.
The split identity of Black Americans who see themselves through the eyes of white society.
To put this another way, African Americans were simultaneously outsiders and insiders, or more specifically, outsiders within. That is, they were (and to some degree still are) both inside and outside of the dominant white society (separated, of course, by the veil).
What is 'The Veil' in DuBois's sociology?
A metaphor representing the racial divide and how Black people are perceived differently from white individuals.
Du Bois meant that there is a separation, a barrier, between blacks and whites. However, the division is not like a wall through which one cannot see. Rather, the veil is a thin, porous material through which members of each race can see the other.
No matter how thin and porous the veil, no matter how easy it is to see through, it still clearly separates the races. In his “Forethought” to The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois made it clear that it was his intention to “lift” the veil, to venture behind or within it, in order to examine, and let his (white) readers glimpse, the “souls” of black people in America:
The veil is symbolic of the objective demarcation of skin color as different than white
You are different than those without the veil!
The veil allows people to see in and out, but white people cannot see Black people as clearly as they can see other white people (for example as “true” or “regular” Americans)
Black face metaphorically is masked here
Black people cannot see themselves as something beyond what white America prescribes for them because of the way our self concept is created (Looking Glass Self)
Indeed, Black people see white people better than white people see them because of “double consciousness”
Which is DuBois’ most Marxian work?
Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Analyzed Reconstruction through a Marxist lens, showing how capitalism exploited Black labor.
Critiqued the failure of white workers to ally with Black workers.
What is racialization?
The process of socially constructing racial identities.
Social processes that create the category of race and use it to organize social life
Used to justify systems of privilege and oppression.
Example: Defining Black people as inferior to maintain white dominance.
What did Weber think of DuBois?
Max Weber, having met and corresponded with Du Bois, viewed him as a great American sociologist (A. Morris, 2015).
Weber’s views on race were significantly shaped by his engagement with Du Bois’s scholarship, and he invited Du Bois to publish an essay on race and class for the German journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik.
How did DuBois feel about social integration for all races?
Initially supported integration through education and activism.
Later believed Black economic and political self-determination was necessary.
Shifted towards Pan-Africanism and Black nationalism.
Why was DuBois critical of socialist parties early on?
Believed socialist movements ignored racial oppression.
Saw white labor unions excluding Black workers.
Thought socialism was too focused on class without addressing racism.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Du Bois was critical of socialism, characterizing it as “cheap and dangerous”
Du Bois saw black workers suffering from competition from white laborers, primarily immigrants. As a result, at this point Du Bois held out little hope for a union of black and white workers, Marxian theory, socialism, and communism:
What happened to DuBois as he traveled the world?
Became more anti-colonial and anti-imperialist.
Saw global connections between Black struggles and other oppressed groups.
Inspired by Soviet socialism and Pan-Africanism.
Still later, in another of his dramatic shifts, he became something of a worshiper of both the Soviet Union and China. This led to some unfortunate and embarrassing statements, including applauding “democracy” in the Soviet Union, welcoming the Soviet repression of the Hungarian uprising, contending that “Joseph Stalin was a great man” (Du Bois, 1953/1995:796), and arguing that “it was only a matter of time and a comparatively short time when the Soviet Union will lead the world in industry”
Moved to the direction of communism
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