At the beginning of the 20th century, multiple decades had passed since the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. While, in theory, African Americans were free to live their lives as they saw fit as a result, in practice, the situation was considerably different. They struggled to catch up financially to their white peers due to their lack of familial wealth and educational attainment. At the same time, various states enacted discrimination and segregation laws that effectively restricted black people to a lower social class than whites. In his 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois attempted to describe the problem and offer solutions that would substantially influence the Harlem Renaissance and, later, the civil rights movement.
Du Bois described the issues of the African American community at different levels of depth. He highlighted the inferior status that its members held in society as well as the poverty in which most of them lived. The writer attributed these problems to political disenfranchisement and sharecropping practices, respectively. As a minority, black people could not pass laws that would help them achieve equality. Moreover, the lack of owned land meant that African American farmers would need to rent it, and, as a result, “the Negro farmer started behind,—started in debt” (Du Bois). However, in addition to these concerns, Du Bois also saw an overarching problem: the lack of a defined African American identity.
Owing to his influential rhetoric, Du Bois became one of the community leaders and was in large part responsible for the phenomenon known as the Harlem Renaissance. He insisted on the formation of a new identity based on the African heritage of the community and the development of a unique culture distinct from that of the rest of the nation. Harlem became the center of black cultural activity, producing developments in literature, visual arts, music, and other areas. However, the Renaissance eventually ended after the Great Depression, and African American issues left the public consciousness for several decades.
The ideas of equality, political power, and leadership put forward by Du Bois were continued by Martin Luther King Jr. and the broader civil rights movement. Having unified the community and formed a distinct identity, influenced in large part by the writer’s ideas, African Americans began demanding an end to discrimination and segregation. The pacifistic movement under Martin Luther King Jr. and the more violent Black Panther Party, inspired by Malcolm X, can be seen as two different interpretations of the idea. The former sought to integrate black people fully into American society and form a unified nation, while the latter represented the idea of black nationalism and developing the community’s identity into a separate system.
Overall, Du Bois’s influence can be traced throughout the entire period between 1903 and 1970. The issues he had described as largest for the African American community were prevalent throughout the entirety of that period. Moreover, he directly led the first attempt to overcome the challenges before black people in America. Although the creators of the Harlem Renaissance eventually dispersed, the culture they created spread throughout the United States. With it came the formation of a stronger identity that eventually culminated in the civil rights movement, which achieved many of the goals Du Bois initially formulated. Without his influence, the history of the United States might have been substantially different.
Works Cited
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Project Gutenberg, 2019. Project Gutenberg E-book.