W.E.B. Du Bois and The Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of Black Folk PDF

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NOTES W.E.B. Du Bois and The Philadelphia Negro Background -Black Philadelphia -Du Bois’ grandmother lived the life of Slavery -1 in 5 blacks living in Philadelphia lived in the 7th ward than any other part of the city -This is where Du Bois studied and wrote his book The Philadelphia Negro, a study commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania under the title of “Assistant Instructor” -First black man to graduate from Harvard University with a PhD -He was asked to study the “negro population of the 7th ward” -People in Philadelphia were certain that all the bad political actions were done by the negros living in the 7th Ward. -One of his key questions was why black people were not able to participate in societal and economic activities within their ward the same way the white would. What was it about the black people that held them back? -Philadelphia Negro was the first non-biased scientific study of Race in the world, Du Bois asked questions via surveys and took the census by living within the 7th ward for a year with his wife, however, many of the black population living there considered Du Bois an “outsider” as he was Harvard educated and therefore in social hierarchy “above them”. Du Bois noted that even within the black community, there was a social structure in place, He argued that the negro problem was “not one problem, but rather a plexus of social problems.” (Relate and contrast to Marx’s race as a distraction, dividing the working class/ Weber on Race and Culture in Economy and Society). -it was one of the first social scientific text written in the United States using advanced Statistics of the time -Du Bois’ investigation in the Philadelphia Negro really establishes the empirical tradition in the United States -In 1899 Most people did not believe that African derived people were human and Du Bois fundamentally challenged that -One of the very strong lessons of this book is that many of the problems faced by Negros of that day were attributed to the environmental conditions that they faced. -He felt that many white people of that time were more than ready to blame the Blacks for their situation, and he thought that was a wrong way to think about race. - He stated that the study of the negro race is not a problem, but the negro does have problems and those problems are within the society we are in and therefore, he made the claim that what needed to change was not the negro, but the society itself. His studies highlighted the structural inequalities present within society and the fact that most of the white population were either unaware or simply disregarded this and instead used “biological” racial studies to justify their discrimination. -His observation led to the conclusion that many of the black population were systematically excluded from industrial jobs or educational opportunities. Black people were prevented from joining trade unions, therefore could not join manufacturing or trade work. Thus more

unemployment among black men in the community, higher rates of poverty and criminal behaviour out of desperation. This criminal behaviour was then used by trade unions to justify them not allowing black people to join them. (See Racial Formation Theory by Omi and Winant and Policing the Crisis, Hall et al 1978). -Problems in the black community were not due to racial inferiority but instead racial prejudice. -”I changed from studying the Negro problem to propaganda to letting people know just what the negro problem meant...How the people were suffering and what they were kept from doing”-Du Bois -Du Bois later founded the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), he would start one of the most influential black periodicals and write on the most important sociological works of his days -Most of Du Bois’s methods lay dormant, re-emerging only in the 1920s—in Chicago again, with the rise of the Chicago School of Sociology Current Situation in Philadelphia/ Reflection -Racial violence exists and is still very visible even now in Philadelphia even after 100 years from when the book was initially written -Black people are still living with the “legacy” of inherited racism, through institutional racism. The ideology of slavery and prejudice is still within the subconscious mind. -While progress has been made to tackle racism it has not been fully eradicated and the progress should not deter from the fact that racism is still very active to this day, there is still a long way to go. -We can still see the themes that Du Bois highlighted in his works to this day, themes such as stereotyping African American citizens in pop culture and so on. -Another example lies in the fact that a disproportionate amount of the Black African American population is likely to be incarcerated for very minor felony conducts, therefore criminalising the “negros” as it was done during Du Bois’ era. -From the Du Boisian point of view, we should, therefore, be arguing that there is something wrong with the criminal justice system which imprisons so many men and women based on the colour of their skin. -In Philadelphia, there are many cases where black workers are simply excluded from the job market (9% black people in the US work in construction Vs 60% Caucasian white people). During his time, Du Bois was concerned about this very exclusion of black people. If the people responsible for social policy had implemented his ideas back then, then perhaps the stigmatization of the black population within Philadelphia would have been significantly lower. The Souls of Black Folk -Written in 1903 -The book exposes the material causes of racism and the effect racism has on black identity. -Du Bois wanted his readers to know about the “strange meaning of being black” by highlighting the laws put into the society that prevented black people from achieving equality in a post-slavery era. (Bring in the debate of if 1903 was truly “post-slavery”)

-Talks about racial segregation and suggests that the population of the United States was separated by a colour line. -He believed that the colour line did more than just divide black people from access to education, jobs and opportunity. It weighed so heavily on their souls that it prevented them from achieving their potentials as human beings (See also Fanon and the effects of racism on the human psyche in Black Skins, White Masks). -Du Bois uses the term “the Veil” to describe how racism made it hard for white people to see black people as true Americans and blacks to see themselves as anything other than the way they were portrayed by whites. -Du Bois also talks about the double consciousness produced by the veil, the spit identity that the blacks feel as they attempt to be both American and African in a way (see case study on New Orleans African American and preserving their African culture and/or mixing it with new French-American Christian values). It is harder for them to adjust in a white society where one identity is less equal than the other (i.e American values over African). -Du Bois hoped for the Black American to be able to find a balance between both identities by “lifting the veil” a metaphor for the white society to recognize the African American citizens as their equals. Some more notes -Protested Jim Crow laws -Organized Pan African Congresses -”One ever feels his twoness and American and a Negro, two souls, two thought, two unreconciled strivings, two warring id” The idea of double consciousness. -race conflict theory -” The differences of colour hair and bone”...