The Souls of Black Folk 377population and help turn them away from black
leaders such as Booker T. Washington, who pro-
moted industrial education. For DuBois, a new soul
of black folk was emerging during post-slavery that
could and would help first to alleviate black social
ills and ultimately elevate and transform black life
from the top down.
Patrice Natalie Delevante
Gender in The Souls of Black Folk
Many works of contemporary African-American lit-
erature, such as Alice Walker’s The coLor purpLe,
Gloria Naylor’s The woMen oF brewster pLace,
and Toni Morrison’s suLa and The bLuest eye,
elucidate the specific difficulties black women have
in their struggle to overcome the legacies of slavery.
Not only are they doubly oppressed, because of their
race and their gender, but many black women must
shoulder the matriarchal burden alone, their men
having succumbed to the pain of emasculation and
frustration.
In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. DuBois
describes the suffering experienced by and the
strength found in black southern women living as
slaves through the Civil War, attempting to rebuild
their communities during the Reconstruction era,
and now gaining access to American progress and
liberties. DuBois shares some of their emotional
and subsequent physical responses due to war and
its aftermath: Black mothers are “frightened” and
unable to provide food and shelter for their children,
a state that results in their now homeless husbands
and children appearing “stalwart” in stature. DuBois
observes black women dreaming and striving to
overcome the many limitations placed on them
because of southern racist attitudes. He narrates
his everyday sightings and conversations with local
black mothers, referring to one as a “magnificent
Amazon” and praising her children as “beautiful” and
“strong.” He also depicts young black women such as
Josie, who uses determination to carry out maternal
and domestic duties at home, labor for financial gain,
and study rigorously to excel in DuBois’s classroom.
DuBois, a student at Fisk University looking
to practice teaching during “break,” meets Josie, a
prospective student enthusiastic about learning, on
his trip to find a teaching job in one of the southern
cities. Fisk’s black male students, including DuBois,
regard themselves as “beyond the Veil,” a statement
describing how they view themselves after securing
educational advancement at Fisk to eliminate the
characteristics of generations of black southerners:
the “slave mentality,” or apathy, ignorance, and sub-
servience. DuBois specifically refers to the “Veil” as a
symbolic representation of the black slave mentality
in force as white racist codes label blacks as being
“born with a veil”; following emancipation, black
slaves were further suppressed within the “veil”
due to discriminatory practices in employment and
higher education as well as in black voter turnout
despite the sanction of the Fifteenth Amendment
(1870), allowing blacks the right to vote. DuBois
calls for young black America to pursue educational
advancements and develop American dreams
“beyond the Veil,” all the while applying forms of
critical consciousness when dealing with social prej-
udices—“self-consciousness, self-realization [and]
self-respect.”
Ironically, a weary DuBois (“rest[ing]” after
“cross[ing] the stream at Watertown”), has a con-
versation with a black woman born without the
“veil,” or living as if her “veil” does not exist, for
Josie “talk[s] fast and loud, with much earnestness
and energy” about attending school after the war.
Josie is a 20-something, brown-skinned, “thin,” and
“homely” black woman, “longing” for an education
and “learn[ing],” possibly at the school in the process
of being built “over the hill.” DuBois not only enters
into discussion with Josie about the school; he also
visits her family. While meeting her mother, father,
and siblings, he observes Josie’s distinct position
within the family, referring to her as its “center” but
also as an embodiment of both her maternal and
paternal figures. Josie is prone to scold her brothers
John and Jim, similar to her mother; she remains
“faithful” like her father, but most important, she
showcases “a certain fineness, the shadow of an
unconscious moral heroism that would willingly give
all of life to make life broader, deeper, and fuller for
her and hers.” Josie is also a “child woman” at home,
for she plays with her siblings but also sews and
handles domestic duties with diligence.
DuBois describes Josie as displaying similar
marks of heroism within her studies, for once