eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape
of a world that looks on in amused contempt and
pity.” He continued, noting that “One ever feels
his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls,
two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two
warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged
strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder”
(DuBois, 3).
In Souls of Black Folk,DuBois emphasized an
investment in the intellectual and political ad-
vancement of people of color and, according to
historian Nathan Huggins, constituted an explicit
rejection of what DuBois and his colleagues re-
garded as Booker T. Washington’s “sell-out of the
Negro’s political and social rights” and his “anti-
intellectual position against higher education for
the Negro man of ability” (Huggins, 20).
Bibliography
Coviello, Peter. “Intimacy and Affliction: DuBois, Race,
and Psychoanalysis,” Modern Language Quarterly 64
(1) 2003. 1–32.
DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. Souls of Black Folk.1903;
reprint, New York: Bantam Books, 1989.
———. The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois: A Solilo-
quy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its
First Century.New York: International Publishers,
1968.
Huggins, Nathan. Harlem Renaissance.New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1971.
Sundquist, Eric. The Oxford W. E. B. DuBois Reader. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Southern RoadSterling Brown(1932)
A collection of diverse and moving poems by
STERLINGBROWN. The volume, which Brown ded-
icated to fellow poet ANNESPENCER, elicited high
praise from leading literary figures and race leaders
such as ALAINLOCKEand JAMESWELDONJOHN-
SON. Locke knighted Brown as the “New Negro
Folk Poet” and praised him earnestly for his pre-
sentation of racial themes and avoidance of stereo-
type. Johnson, affiliated at the time with FISK
UNIVERSITY, praised Brown for crafting a number
of poems that “admit of no classification or brand”
and others that reflect the poet’s capacity for
transforming folk poems “without diluting [their]
primitive frankness and raciness” and for present-
ing these foundational African-American poetic
ideas “with artistry and magnified power” (John-
son, xxxvii).
The volume, which appeared just one year
after Brown published his influential anthology en-
titled THEBOOK OFAMERICANNEGROPOETRY
(1931), included previously published poems and a
number of new works. The book was divided into
four sections. The two longest sections were Part
One, entitled “Road So Rocky,” with 21 poems,
and Part Two, entitled “On Restless River,” with 18
poems. The last two and the shortest sections were
Part Three, “Tin Roof Blues,” and Part Four, “Ves-
tiges,” which contained nine and 10 poems, re-
spectively. Brown combined traditional poetical
forms such as sonnets with work songs, ballads,
and sermons.
The volume opens with a series of poems that
reflect the intense history of African-American
labor and migration. In the first, “Odyssey of Big
Boy,” the narrator, Big Boy, provides a sobering au-
tobiographical record that includes mining, to-
bacco harvesting, corn shucking, rice planting, and
dock work. “Done worked and loafed on such like
jobs / Seen what dey is to see,” muses the narrator,
before he shifts his attention to the myriad social
experiences that have accompanied, if not soft-
ened, his grueling work life. “Done had my time
wid a pint on my hip / An’ a sweet gal on my knee,
/ Sweet mommer on my knee,” he notes. Big Boy is
proud to assert that he “Done took my livin’ as it
came, / Done grabbed my joy, done risked my life”
and as he contemplates his own mortality, asks
only “Lemme be wid John Henry, steel drivin’ man,
/ Lemme be wid old Jazzbo” when “time comes fo’
to go.” The reflective hardworking hero who
emerges in Big Boy continues to examine his own
philosophies about masculinity, domesticity, and
emotional ties. In “Long Gone,” the speaker con-
fesses his inability to settle in one place. In the
poem, which functions as a one-sided conversation
between two lovers, Big Boy confesses that al-
though he “laks yo’ kin’ of lovin’ ” and “Ain’t never
caught you wrong,” “it jes’ ain’ nachal / Fo’ to stay
here long.” He confesses that “I don’t know which
way I’m travelin’—/ Far or near, / All I knows fo’
certain is / I cain’t stay here.” In the face of his
lover’s understandable distress, he tries to reassert
his powerlessness to resist the deep and uncon-486 Southern Road