W.E.B Du Bois begins his seminal work The Souls of Black Folk with a forethought that directs the “gentle reader” that his book is about the meaning of being black in the 20th century. By address the reader as gentle it is clear Du Bois is speaking to a non- black audience. He says that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” By this, he means that the problem in modern times is the divide between races that ensure that black people receive inferior treatment compared to white people. He states that the line has been solidified since the time of slavery but it may be slightly unstable. Du Bois is suggesting to a primarily white audience who may assume that issues of race and racism are irrelevant to them that this is far from the truth because as long black and white people live alongside each other the line between them will fracture and eventually break in the face of blatant inequality. 

Du Bois then outlines his book and states “need I add that I who speak here am bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that live within the Veil?” Du Bois is clarifying to the reader and all the publishers he mentioned beforehand that he has personal experience as a black man. He ends his forethought dramatically to prove to the reader that he has been a victim of oppression based on the color of his skin and he too has lived in the Veil and experienced the injustices he is about to discuss. This gives Du Bois an added sense of ethos, that his work is credible due to personal experience. 

The most prominent symbols in The Souls of Black Folk are the color line and the Veil. While the color line is the physical representation of the divide between white and black people the Veil is the psychological manifestation of this phenomenon. The color line exists in the world and limits people’s access to opportunities, education, bathrooms, and even water fountains. The color line manifests in “whites only” signs like the one to the right. The Veil however lives in people’s minds. It is what compels white people to structure society in a racists manner. The Veil prevents white people from seeing black people as human beings with rights and privileges while also preventing black people from seeing themselves outside the negative frame of racism. This leads to the double-consciousness where black people view themselves through the frame of racism and through their own eyes which leads to internal conflict. The Veil is subconsciously in many people’s brains but they don’t feel as if they are doing anything wrong. This leads to a racists undertone in the way we structure society that still exists today. 

Although Du Bois wrote this book in 1903 his messages are still relevant today in 2020. We as a society have cracked the color line but we must individually work on the Veil in our minds. The color line is slightly broken but the Veil is completely intact as made clear by the Black Lives Matter protests of this year. We as individuals must work to be actively anti-racist rather than just not being racists. We must identify racial inequalities that an inherent in our society and champion anti-racist ideals that will demolish those inequalities. We have to stop thinking that we are simply not racists and confront the racist ideas that have been ingrained in us and that veil our thinking. 

Du Bois knew that the color line and the Veil were the biggest obstacles to equality. He also knew that the Emancipation of the slaves wasn’t the end of the struggle for equality. We as a society have begun to trudge past signs outside of restrooms but we have a long way to go to create an equal society and that process must start but breaking the color line and lifting the Veil in our minds. 

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.