Prose Styles and Du Bois’ Argument for a Better World

In his book The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois employed a revolutionary style of writing. He did not follow the usual conventions of turn-of-the-century scholarly argument, but innovatively merged forms together, using this new form as a literary representation of his over arching argument. Du Bois used different prose styles that characterized the different facets of his argument. According to Du Bois African Americans needed a rounded, multifaceted experience through first, formal higher education—represented by abstract prose; second, vocational training and basic education—represented by factual history; and third the liberty to experience life—represented by personal accounts. All of these pieces of Du Bois argument pointed toward facilitating a change in black leadership and black communities.

            Du Bois began by demonstrating his remarkable ability for abstraction. These famous words set up the purpose and tone of his book: “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.”[1] Blacks in America were born into this life with a symbolic veil over their eyes. They were forced to see themselves and the world not only through their own point of view, but through the point of view of white men. At no other time in history, Du Bois claimed, was an entire race forced into this “double-consciousness,” “this twoness.” Two men inhabited the body of every black man, and they struggled since Emancipation to synthesize these two into one, more perfect man, a “coworker in the kingdom of culture.”[2]

            Black communities’ struggled to gain the equality they were promised following Emancipation. During the years of Reconstruction, former slaves found themselves in an extension of the bondage they had just come from. They pleaded for liberty, and as Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing them the right to vote, they thought they had found the means by which they may finally find it. For years they tried to no avail. Alas they settled on the idea that “book-learning” in higher institutions of learning would free them from their perpetual bonds of serfdom. Book learning by itself, however, did not accomplish this goal.[3] Du Bois then stated his claim that none of the above paths to liberty could accomplish its goal alone or in succession with another. Black Americans needed political action, vocational training, and higher institutional learning together to bring the entire race up onto an equal plane with the rest of society.[4]

            This portion of Du Bois’ book portrayed a number of abstract ideas. He formed these ideas after much contemplation on the subject, apparent in the form of his argument. He was able to think outside the box and form an original argument grounded in evidence, both real and ideological. Du Bois used abstract ideas again and again throughout Souls, not only to argue his point in text, but in form. His ability to create arguments based on conceptual ideas resulted from his education. After finishing a bachelor’s degree from Fisk, Du Bois studied at Harvard, where he earned another bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and became the first African American man to earn a Ph.D. from the acclaimed institution.[5] He himself, Du Bois argued subliminally, exemplified why black Americans needed higher education. Similar theoretical portions pervade the entirety of the text.

            Du Bois followed his abstract ideas with segments of factual history. His second essay titled “Of the Dawn of Freedom” exemplified his broad knowledge on the subject. In this essay Du Bois recounted the history of society’s question “What shall be done with the Negroes?” and how they attempted to answer it.[6] The Freedmen’s Bureau, according to Du Bois’ history, attempted to wrestle with this issue during and following the Civil War. From “contraband of war,” to “a military resource,” African Americans during the war were still seen as property or livestock. Following the war Congress struggled to designate what agency would deal with the problem of freed slaves, and how that agency would be allowed to do so. They hastily put them under the War Department in the new Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Slowly the Freedmen’s Bureau melted away. Both the public and private attempts to handle the issues of freed slaves failed. These failures placed freedmen, and all free blacks, in a state of permanent lower class status.[7]

            This second essay attempted to present facts and history of the Freedmen’s Bureau as they existed, along with the long-term effects of those events. Du Bois related these facts to show the need for basic education. Basic schooling teaches individuals how to make sense of history and patterns while fostering reading and writing skills that will help him/her function as a productive member of society. It is very difficult to vote or enter into meaningful dialogue without a basic understanding of the English language and basic histories. Du Bois argued that the African American people want to be more than just workers, and their inability to perform basic tasks within society would guarantee permanent worker status. This example of the many fact-based essays in Souls exemplifies Du Bois argument for basic education.

            To make his abstract and fact-oriented arguments more real and human, Du Bois followed them with his own personal experiences and observations of black life in America. His two essays, “Of the Meaning of Progress” and “Of the Black Belt” are powerful examples of Du Bois’ ability to relate his own experiences to others. The first of the two told the story of Du Bois’ years as a school teacher in Tennessee. He soon felt the effects of “the veil” as his inequality within the society became apparent.[8] His students had to meet in an old drafty corn shed. Often the students could not attend school due to their work responsibilities. Families were forced by their economic conditions to live in single room cabins. The people worked so hard, in so many forms of labor, and were never able to break even. When he returned a few years later his former students were either in the same condition as their parents, or dead.[9] Similarly, the families he saw when he visited Georgia in the second essay were dreadfully trapped in their situation. Debt constantly loomed over the heads of the tenant farmers no matter their efforts, and the once great economy was shriveling.[10] Both of these communities were stalled in their progression and riddled with despair.

            Du Bois’ personal memoirs effectively expressed his belief in the importance of liberty to experience life for oneself. Much of Du Bois’ understanding and conviction of the issues he argued came from his observations of the system. His basic education, in connection with his higher education, opened his eyes to the issues when he saw them. He had the freedom to gain his education and the freedom to personally see the effect society’s bigotry had on black Americans. This is where, had he chosen, Du Bois could have made his call for political action.

When an educated black populace could personally see or experience the degradation caused by the “veil,” they could combine for political action to begin to change the system. Only together could education and experience bring American blacks up as equal members of society, and Du Bois used his three prose styles to exemplify that. True employment of these three pieces together would have a lasting effect on the black community. Souls not only made an argument for the improvement of the black situation, it literally was that argument.

---

[1] W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1902 (Simon and Schuster: NY, 2009) 3.

[2] Ibid, 7-8.

[3] Ibid, 10-11.

[4] Ibid, 13-16.

[5] Ibid, IX.

[6] Ibid, 18.

[7] Ibid, 19-40.

[8] Ibid, 65.

[9] Ibid, 62-75.

[10] Ibid, 109-131.