The Souls of Black Folk
By W.E.B. Du Bois
Publication Year: 1903
Type: Non-fiction
Genre: history, social justice
Read on 2020-07-02
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2020 Reading Survey ➞
☆☆☆☆☆
No rating for this one for many fairly obvious reasons.
Made me realize just how little the Canadian/BC social studies curriculum taught me about slavery and emancipation - as in really NOTHING AT ALL. It’s really preposterous that anyone living in North America shouldn’t know this history. And it’s really no wonder that Black erasure and invisibility is so prevalent in Canada especially - we don’t even know what historic and ongoing anti-Black racism is happening in our own cities and neighborhoods. Obviously Dubois doesn’t discuss the migrations and settlements of Black people across Canada in this book, but it’s an important part of Canadian and North American history that should be known to communities that might otherwise not realize the direct connection between abolition and anti-Black segregation, racism, and other forms of systemic racism in Canada since
The book is mostly a history and lives of Black people after the abolition of slavery. Dubois gives both a systemic history (Freedman’s Bureau, 15th amendment, other administrations and policies of abolition, etc.) as well as some very personal accounts from himself and other individuals who lived through this period and it’s aftermath. He argues very strongly for Black education - on money and personal finances and to expand opportunity overall to build the foundation for a self-determined Black civilization in America. He also describes and moralizes a lot on the present shortcomings of Black people due to centuries of enslavement and disenfranchisement - this is the part where I kind of take issue. Dubois really puts a lot of emphasis on Black individuals to be industrious and morally upright, going so far as to condemn the “idle” and those contributing to high rates of Black crime. As someone who has unwittingly but undeniably absorbed a Marxist framework in her political thought through her humanities education and leftist Tumblr/Twitter feeds, I really believe the real target should be the systems and not the individuals.
I also get the sense that he wrote this for a white audience? Just in that he very carefully, meticulously describes the historic and systemic oppressions of Black people in the U.S. which are so deeply engrained they are overwhelming to redress. So much of what he describes of the conditions of Black communities and life in the 19th century rings eerily true for the present moment and the calls to action from the Black Lives Matter movement. He references for instance the establishment of police specifically to police the Black population.
Anyways I read this as an audiobook because it was available on Libby right away and I was done making excuses for myself NOT to read seminal texts by Black authors and figured this was as good a place to start as any. Caution though - Dubois writes in pretty hefty language so if you’re not into that or older histories, I’d suggest prioritizing contemporary writers/books instead.
