The Souls of Black Folk: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

The chapter begins with a quotation from the medieval Persian mathematician, philosopher, and poet Omar Khayyam. Du Bois states that since the first slaves arrived in the US, there have been three “streams of thinking” about race. The first “stream” favors the idea of human unity and co-operation across races. The second, which Du Bois describes as an old Southern way of thinking, holds that black people are in a category between humans and animals—potentially “lovable within [their] limitations,” but doomed to always be behind the Veil. The third mode of thought is that of black people themselves, who yearn for freedom and equality but are sometimes forced to wonder if the second way of thinking is correct.

Du Bois argues that the racism of the South must be addressed seriously; it cannot be “laughed away” or erased by changes to the law, and it should not be ignored. The only solution to racism can be found in education, reason, and culture. Similarly, the hopes and ambitions of black people must be taken seriously. Currently, education is tasked with addressing all three streams of thought at once; it must help people realize their potential, “stamp out” prejudice, and support those who live behind the Veil.

Education in the South must provide a way forward for “two backward peoples.” Du Bois examines the history of Southern education since the civil war. In the first years following the war, education was in a state of chaos and uncertainty. There then followed ten years of constructive change, when—among other achievements—universities for freedmen were founded. However, the quality of these universities was varied and often rather poor, and the quality of schooling for black children was low. At the same time, the industrial revolution took over the South. Industrial schools were thus also founded, and became prominent in the decade beginning in 1895.

Du Bois identifies a problem with industrial schools—that they can treat people as no more than workers, a means of increasing material prosperity. He argues that this line of thinking originated in slavery, but has not disappeared after slavery’s end. Education that allows for the fulfillment of dreams and ambitions is treated as “the privilege of white men” (and white men only). Du Bois describes the South as being racially divided into “two separate worlds” at every level of life: schools, workplaces, churches, culture, transportation, hospitals, and jails. This separation is so absolute that it “absolutely precludes… sympathetic and effective group-training and leadership” across the races.

In spite of the “sneers of critics,” Teachers’ Institutes were founded and quickly trained 30,000 much-needed black teachers. Du Bois quotes an article from a white Southern newspaper arguing that providing classical education to young African Americans ended up being “a waste of time, efforts, and money,” because black people simply robotically repeated the information they were supposed to learn. While Du Bois dismisses this argument as unreasonable, he concedes that there arevalid concerns surrounding the state of black higher education that need to be addressed.

Du Bois admits that fifty years ago it would have been difficult to prove that black people were capable of succeeding in a “modern college course,” but now over four hundred African-Americans have graduated from top universities, including Harvard and Yale. Du Bois writes that he personally knows many black graduates, and that he has never encountered a more selfless, devoted, and determined group of people. He says that they are mostly “conservative, careful leaders,” who are not “agitators.”

Du Bois says that if white and black people are to live alongside each other in a harmonious fashion, there will be a need for black colleges to exist. It would not be sustainable for all black people in the South to be lumped together in the same socioeconomic class, with no mobility or diversity. Moreover, there is an obvious demand among young black people for higher education.

Du Bois makes an impassioned argument that if white Southerners object to black people’s presence among them, they should stop and remember who brought them there; if they complain about black crime, they should look to the widespread evidence of white-on-black rape (in the form of mixed-race people) and of the greatest crime of all: slavery. Du Bois admits that of course not all black people are honorable, but that there is more danger in “half-trained minds” than in those who have received a proper education.

Du Bois argues that black colleges have three functions: to “maintain the standards of popular education,” help improve the situation of black people, and improve co-operation and relations across the races. He concludes by claiming that it is only through being well-educated that he is able to ever find himself “above the Veil.”