W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, pp. 6-7:
"...few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries. To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes of wearied Israelites....At last [Freedom] came, -- suddenly, fearfully, like a dream...
"Years have passed away since then,... and yet the swarthy spectre [sic] sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation's feast...
"The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land."
This captures my sense of the devastation that ensued for black northerners after emancipation was finally realized in the South. Not only was freedom not free for black southerners, but its supposed existence worsened the condition for black northerners. White people seized upon the opportunity to assert that the scourge of America's sin had been, at long last, extirpated from America. For those white people concerned about the immorality of slavery, their guilt was now assuaged. But little had changed in black people's lived experience, and their condition in fact worsened when white allies now turned their attention elsewhere, believing this "problem" to be gone. Over time, black people's continued pursuit of opportunities and justice felt to white people like whining. Thus, black people continued to be "problems" in the white mind, as Du Bois points out at the very beginning of his treatise on the black condition in America early in the twentieth century.
I have not read The Souls of Black Folk since developing my newest research project on the post-emancipation condition of the black population in the North. I had forgotten this specific commentary of his, and it helps remind me of the importance of the study I look to undertake.
"...few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries. To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes of wearied Israelites....At last [Freedom] came, -- suddenly, fearfully, like a dream...
"Years have passed away since then,... and yet the swarthy spectre [sic] sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation's feast...
"The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land."
This captures my sense of the devastation that ensued for black northerners after emancipation was finally realized in the South. Not only was freedom not free for black southerners, but its supposed existence worsened the condition for black northerners. White people seized upon the opportunity to assert that the scourge of America's sin had been, at long last, extirpated from America. For those white people concerned about the immorality of slavery, their guilt was now assuaged. But little had changed in black people's lived experience, and their condition in fact worsened when white allies now turned their attention elsewhere, believing this "problem" to be gone. Over time, black people's continued pursuit of opportunities and justice felt to white people like whining. Thus, black people continued to be "problems" in the white mind, as Du Bois points out at the very beginning of his treatise on the black condition in America early in the twentieth century.
I have not read The Souls of Black Folk since developing my newest research project on the post-emancipation condition of the black population in the North. I had forgotten this specific commentary of his, and it helps remind me of the importance of the study I look to undertake.
