The Souls of Black Folk

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches is a collection of essays and sketches by W. E. B. Du Bois, published by A. C. McClurg & Co. on 18 April 1903. Several of its texts had first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. It is regarded as a foundational work both in the history of sociology and in African-American literature. Du Bois drew on his own experience as a Black American living in early twentieth-century United States society.

The central argument is that Black Americans, especially in the South, must be granted the right to vote, a good education, and equal treatment and justice. In the first chapter, Du Bois introduces the concept of "double consciousness", the sense of always seeing oneself through the eyes of others, and the metaphor of the veil, which separates the world as Black Americans experience it from the world as white Americans see it. For Du Bois the veil is a visible sign of the color line, the problem he devoted his life to confronting. The second chapter covers the years 1861 to 1872 and the Freedmen's Bureau, which he presents as one of the most remarkable efforts by a nation to grapple with questions of race and social condition, while also noting its shortcomings.

The chapters on education place Du Bois in opposition to Booker T. Washington, who advised Black Americans to concentrate on industrial training and the accumulation of wealth. Du Bois argued that this approach came at the cost of political power, the assertion of civil rights, and higher education, and he called for a classical education that would produce the community's leaders and teachers. Later chapters offer sociological studies of Black life and challenge stereotypes of laziness, violence, or naivety, which Du Bois traced largely to the treatment Black people received from whites. He also examines the Black church, which he saw as a source of consolation but as an insufficient base for economic advancement in this life.

The book closes with portraits of individuals, including an account of the death of his young son, a short biography of the clergyman Alexander Crummell, and a fictional story about a young man who returns from university and is rejected by both communities. A final chapter is devoted to Black music, whose melodies head the other chapters. Since its publication the book has been repeatedly reissued and has shaped generations of thinking about race, and the notion of double consciousness has become one of the most frequently cited ideas in American social thought.