W.E.B Du Bois, most notable for his critical essays on racial segregation, published his work The Souls of Black Folk to emphasize the quality of living conditions that African Americans had to endure during the period after the Civil War. In his compelling piece, Du Bois brings up several significant ideas that are unique to his thinking as a social activist such as the ideas of double consciousness, double aims, the color-line, the veil, and many more. What I want to shed some light on is his concept of double consciousness, which he uses to describe the experience of African Americans in the United States.
As Du Bois describes, double conciousness is the existence of two identities in one body: that of a Negro and of an American. Du Bois clearly describes that, “One ever feels his twoness,- 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.” His constant repetition of the idea of having “two” of everything derives from his belief that the American and the Negro are two conflicting identities. In this way, Du Bois explains that a Negro will never yield himself “true self-consciousness” because he can never be either solely American or solely a Negro.
