Double Consciousness 187describe the dilemma of double consciousness best and
show the political, cultural, and sociological struggles that
continue some 100 years aft er the publication of Th e Souls
of Black Folk. To experience and conceive of life through
such a double consciousness is an undeniable dilemma
and one that would, in the decades to come throughout the
20th cen tury, defi ne in many ways the continued struggles
of Africans on American soil.
Du Bois foresaw that this concept—this dilemma,
this double consciousness—that was occurring because
of, alongside of, and within the central problem of the
20th century, which he identifi ed as “the problem of the
color-line,” would be fundamental to the struggle for black
liberation, civil rights, and equality in the United States.
Indeed, some two years later, Du Bois would give a speech
at the fi rst meeting of the Niagara Movement, which would
demand full suff rage, public accommodations, human
rights, education for all, and ultimately, unbending en-
forcement of the Constitution of the United States regard-
less of color. Th e lived experiences of African Americans,
as Du Bois understood it through this concept, provided
undeniable evidence that the ideals of the Bill of Rights,
the Constitution, and indeed the Fift eenth Amendment
were not being realized for all Americans. Th e demands
of the Niagara Movement were certainly grounded in a
desire to reconcile the double consciousness and to ex-
plicitly attack key ideals of the United States—ideals that
were not fulfi lled. Th at the internal and external struggle
of the “American Negro” was one of double consciousness,
Du Bois considered to be laid directly at the hands of the
government of the United States—a government rooted in
white supremacy. Th e pursuit to unify the “soul” of the
African American eff ectively, without losing either black-
ness or full American citizenship, was important for the
strategies of the NAACP and other black organizations as
well as in movements such as Pan-Africanism, the Civil
Rights movement, and Black Power.
Not only did the idea of a double consciousness hold
a central place in the strategies of important black libera-
tion movements, but the idea also foreshadowed other im-
portant conceptual developments in African and African
American scholarship. For example, Carter G. Woodson’s
Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), Frantz Fanon’s Wretched
of the Earth (1965), Stokely Carmichael and Charles V.
Hamilton’s Black Power: Th e Politics of Liberation in Amer-
ica (1967), and even Molefi K. Asante’s Th e Afrocentric IdeaMiles Davis died in Santa Monica, California, on Septem-
ber 28, 1991, aft er suff ering from a stroke and pneumonia.
See also: Black Folk Culture; Coltrane, John; Jazz; Parker,
Charlie
Lemuel Berry Jr.Bibliography
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Feather, Leonard, and Ira Gitler. Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seven-
ties. New York: Horizon Press, 1966.
Kofsky, Frank. Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music.
New York: Pathfi nders, 1970.
Mabunda, Limpho. Reference Library of Black America, Vol. 4. De-
troit, MI: Gale Group, 1997.
Southern, Eileen. Bibliographical Dictionary of Afro-Americans
and African Musicians. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1982.
Southern, Eileen. Th e Music of Black Americans. New York:
Norton, 1997.
Taylor, Arthur. Nates and Jones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews.
New York: Perigee, 1977.
Walton, Ortiz M. Music: Black, White and Blue. New York:
Morrow, 1972.
Double Consciousness
In 1903, W. E. B Du Bois wrote Th e Souls of Black Folk, one
of the most important and deeply profound works of Afri-
can American scholarship. In the opening essay, “Of Our
Spiritual Strivings,” Du Bois used the concept of “double-
consciousness” to describe the social, cultural, psychologi-
cal, and political “contradiction” of the “American Negro”
or African American in the U.S. context just four decades
aft er the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Du Bois’ de-
velopment of this illuminating concept was grounded in
his understanding of black American life from his highly
original book Th e Philadelphia Negro (1896), the fi rst of its
kind, and the legacy of this understanding of what it means
to be both black and American and the struggle inherent
therein. Such ground is still highly relevant for our under-
standing of the current realities and struggles of African
Americans.
For Du Bois, the souls of black folk, though highly
varied, have in common the struggle to resolve this inher-
ent contradiction—but through a resolution that works for
African Americans and not against them. Du Bois’ words