Notes on "The Souls of Black Folk" by W. E. B. Du Bois

I thought I was an educated man and understood at least the basic history of race in America, but The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, was a revelation. There were many points while reading this book where I wondered, "could I have been sleeping in class that day?" The Civil War, of course, was about freeing the slaves. I know about the Civil War. I, after all, watched the Ken Burns miniseries. I should think I would know more about what happened regarding the slaves. I should think I would know that freeing of slaves occurred in the midst of the battlefield, because of course the battlefields were among farms and plantations. I should think that I would know that some Union Generals responded to black men escaping to Union lines by ordering the ir return to their "rightful" owners or by effectively enslaving them themselves. I must have been asleep in school when these facts were discussed.

Du Bois said at the beginning of the last century, "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." He meant by this more than the white/black issues in the United States, but all the encounters and conflicts among the races throughout the world. This proved prescient, of course. These conflicts continue, in the twenty first century to occupy us. The Souls of Black Folk, except for its title, reads as a very modern book.

- J