The Souls of Black Folk

"The Souls of Black Folk" by W. E. B Dubois, is markedly different from the last text we read. "Up from Slavery" focused mainly on the education of black people in order to give them the necessary skills to survive in society, and improve the general living conditions of black society. “The Souls of Black Folk” is a more broad overview of the transition of black society from slavery to freedom. The rhetoric in the two texts is also completely different. “Up from Slavery” is an autobiography and is written in first person. “The Souls of Black Folk” is more of an essay written in third person. The effect of this is that the “Up from Slavery” is more easily accessible and relatable to personal life, while “The Souls of Black Folk” has more of a sense of authority in terms of statistics and large general views. It also takes a more political tone than Washington’s book. While Dubois agrees that Washington’s accomplishments and goals are noteworthy and in general a major improvement he believes that Washington’s own success is one of his greatest flaws. Because of his enormous popularity critics rarely speak out against Washington. However in the particular case of politics Dubois believes that he is wrong. He believes that black people cannot allow themselves to be made inferior to their white neighbors. Although industrial education is good and will ultimately help improve society, without higher education the system is flawed. Although the majority of black people can continue with the industrial education that was primarily developed by Washington, Dubois believes that the best and brightest minds have to be trained further, and that a institute of higher education has to be founded specifically for black people in much the same way that Tuskegee was founded to for industrial education. Dubois’s reasoning is that without an institute of this kind the training of next generation of teachers would become difficult. Even if most people are doing work in industry that requires non of what might be deemed higher more theoretical knowledge, someone has to study it. Otherwise the knowledge will be lost leading to a deteriorization of the entire body of knowledge and eventually even affecting the industrial schools. In other words Dubois believes that the teachers of more industrial schools had to be trained in institutions of higher education. Dubois also believed that the black people had to continue to pursue political power simply in order to defend themselves from the white Southerners attempts to force them back into servitude.