W. E. B. Du Bois: Double Consciousness Long before the work of Erik Erikson and those who followed him, exploration of racial identity construction was addressed early in the 20th century. Thirty-eight years after the end of slavery, W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the identity struggles of Black people in America. As the first Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard with a doctoral thesis entitled (1896/2007), Du Bois The Suppression of the African Slave Trade demonstrated a keen awareness of the struggles faced by Black Americans in the 20th century who attempted to be both Black and American in a racially divided United States. Du Bois (1903/2003) offered for consideration the plight of the Negro in the book The and addressed the duality of consciousness as experienced by the Souls of Black Folk Black man: The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring soul by the tape of a world that one’s looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. (Du Bois, 2003 p. 9) Du Bois acknowledged the duality of personhood experienced by Blacks post-slavery, and the struggles of a people and their ancestors who were stripped of their identity during slavery, stripped of names, native languages, cultural practices, and religion;
W. E. B. Du Bois: Double Consciousness Long before the work of Erik Erikson and those who followed him, exploration of racial identity construction was addressed early in the 20th century. Thirty-eight years after the end of slavery, W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the identity struggles of Black people in America. As the first Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard with a doctoral thesis entitled The Suppression of the African Slave Trade (1896/2007), Du Bois demonstrated a keen awareness of the struggles faced by Black Americans in the 20th century who attempted to be both Black and American in a racially divided United States. Du Bois (1903/2003) offered for consideration the plight of the Negro in the book The Souls of Black Folk and addressed the duality of consciousness as experienced by the Black man: The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this 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 two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. (Du Bois, 2003 p. 9) Du Bois acknowledged the duality of personhood experienced by Blacks post-slavery, and the struggles of a people and their ancestors who were stripped of their identity during slavery, stripped of names, native languages, cultural practices, and religion;