W. E. B Dubois Double Consciousness Essay

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Have you ever felt like you did not know exactly who you are or ever felt like you did not fit in your society? Well, that’s how most of the African Americans felt during the Harlem Renaissance. W.E.B. DuBois concept on double consciousness is when a person believes their identity is divided into two different identities. “Double consciousness, the sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness," (Du Bois, 12). He first brought up the concept of Double Consciousness after he published the book, “The Souls of Black Folk” in 1903. He wrote about how black people struggled for a long time to find their identities. …show more content…

They migrated all over the country, from the southern farmlands to northern cities. At first, whites’ treated the African Americans were treated pretty normal and were accepted. They started living pretty normal jobs, starting their businesses and establishing their homes, even then the whites’ looked down on the blacks’, they saw them smaller in economy and in different aspects. That is why blacks changed their lives and found a better life in the neighborhood for some time. This led to a higher population of the Whites from the south leading. The population of poor blacks in the region increased, as most of them lost their jobs and were from the poor background. This situation led to an increase of thugs, formed group’s gangs, and disturbed the peace of the people in those areas. Which caused double consciousness for later on blacks because that is what the image that whites’ have remembered and have kept for many years after and even to this …show more content…

In his book, Du Bois stated that the "Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil" (Pg 12). The veil in this sense is like a curtain that separates different types and groups of people. It is portrayed by showing that the veil is separating the whites’ and the blacks’. The veil acts as a mask for the whites and they are not able to see the importance of black culture for the American culture. It blocks off the African Americans that are born “In the veil”, which makes them invisible to the rest of America. DuBois was trying to say that he wants to lift up this veil that the blacks’ are under and show us, the Americans, what is inside the

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