- 01The veil and double-consciousness
- 02The Negro's striving for self-realization
- 03From repression to self-questioning
- 04Work, culture, liberty, and human brotherhood
- 05The Negro Problem as a test of the republic
The Souls of Black Folk
Race, double consciousness, and American democracy.
14Chapters
68Lessons
175Topics
Certificate of completion included
This course was produced by Cavua from a public-domain text.
Skills this course leaves you with.
- Analyze Du Bois’s arguments about double consciousness and racial identity
- Explain how Reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureau shaped Black life in the postwar South
- Evaluate Booker T. Washington’s position in relation to Du Bois’s critique of accommodation
- Interpret the book’s treatment of the color line, education, labor, and democracy
- Discuss the social and economic conditions of Black communities described in the Black Belt chapters
- Connect the text’s literary form and essays to its historical and political context
Curriculum
The full table of contents.
Every chapter, every lesson, every topic — laid out before you enroll. Click any chapter to expand it.
- Chapters
- 14
- Lessons
- 68
- Topics
- 175
- 01The color-line as the twentieth-century problem
- 02The dawn of freedom and the Freedmen’s Bureau
- 01Contrabands and military policy
- 02Freedmen's Bureau and relief societies
- 03Labor control and Sherman’s Field Order No. 15
- 01Early proposals for a freedmen's bureau
- 02Act of 1865 establishing the Freedmen's Bureau
- 03Howard's administration and the first year of Bureau work
- 04Congressional debate over extending the Bureau
- 05Freedmen’s Bureau as a full-fledged government
- 06Reconstruction conditions and limits of social regeneration
- 01Freed slave between North and South
- 02Freedmen’s Bureau work and relief
- 01Labor contracts and the freedmen as wage workers
- 02Land ownership and the failure of forty acres
- 03Free schools and Negro education
- 04Soldiers’ pay and the beginnings of free capital
- 01Freedmen’s Bureau courts and judicial tensions
- 02Summary of the Bureau’s achievements and failures
- 01Freedmen’s Bureau under attack and investigation
- 02Freedmen’s Bank collapse and its effects
- 03Arguments for Negro suffrage
- 01Negro suffrage as a wartime necessity
- 02A permanent Freedmen’s Bureau and national support systems
- 03The Bureau’s failures and the Fifteenth Amendment
- 04The unfinished legacy of emancipation
- 01The problem of the color-line
- 01Booker T. Washington’s ascendancy and Atlanta Compromise
- 02Criticism from North and South
- 03Historical leadership of the American Negro
- 01Mr. Washington’s economic program and the surrender of rights
- 02Critics of the triple paradox
- 01The duty to state Negro demands plainly
- 02Discriminating criticism of the South
- 03Assessing Booker T. Washington's doctrine
- 04The duty of black men to oppose injustice
- 01Searching for a country school
- 02Josie and her family
- 03The schoolhouse and its furnishings
- 01Opening of the school and the pupils
- 02Home visits and family life
- 03Alexandria, the hill community, and the Veil
- 01Return to Fisk and the valley homes
- 02The Burkes, Dowells, and changing farms
- 01Life and death among the neighbors
- 01Atlanta’s awakening after war
- 01Atlanta's race toward industrial future
- 02Atalanta and the temptation of gold
- 03The Sanctuary of our fathers and Southern ideals
- 01Material prosperity as the South's touchstone
- 02The Black World beyond the Veil
- 01Atlanta University as a green oasis of learning
- 01The university as the organ of civilization
- 02Southern universities and the need for broad culture
- 01Teach workers to work and thinkers to think
- 02Atalanta and Hippomenes closing image
- 01Three streams of thought about Black life
- 02Education as the solution to training men for life
- 01Four decades of Southern educational development
- 02Critique and defense of Negro higher education
- 01New England colleges and the freed Negro
- 02Outcomes of Negro college graduates
- 03The Negro college-bred man in Southern development
- 01Higher education and the Talented Tenth
- 02The Negro's position and Southern social order
- 01Industrial training and deeper college foundations
- 02Functions of the Negro college
- 03Developing men and sovereign human souls
- 01Dwelling above the Veil through literature and philosophy
- 01Georgia, slavery, and the Negro population
- 02Journey into the Black Belt and Albany
- 03Cotton Kingdom plantations and tenant life
- 04Schoolhouse and lodgehouse on the county line
- 05Fences, cabins, and the Negro problem
- 06The ruined mill village and the Wizard of the North
- 01The Black Belt of Georgia
- 02Dougherty County swamp and slave kingdom
- 01Plantation grandeur and hidden ruin
- 02Egypt of the Confederacy and postwar contrasts
- 03Debt, tenancy, and black landownership in Dougherty
- 01Convict farm tenants and labor conditions
- 02Contrasting black farm characters
- 01Decline of the Whistle place after the war
- 02Northwest Dougherty County and Negro farmers
- 01Changing farm ownership and labor conditions
- 02Gillonsville crossroads store and cheated land purchase
- 01The Cotton Field as the Golden Fleece
- 02Cotton Mills and the New South
- 01The Negro in the Cotton Kingdom
- 02Debt and postwar decline in Dougherty County
- 03Slave cabins and Negro housing
- 01Negro cabin housing conditions
- 02Crowding and causes of poor homes
- 03Family structure, marriage, and separation
- 04Character and ignorance of the county black population
- 01Black farm labor and rural life
- 02Sharecropping, merchant credit, and crop liens
- 03Cotton debt and its causes
- 01Forced labor in the Black Belt
- 02Migration-agent laws and labor recruitment
- 03White patronage and control of black mobility
- 01Black Belt as mutual defence
- 02Migration to Town as counter-movement
- 03Dougherty County and labor incentives
- 01Economic classes among Dougherty County Negroes
- 01Money wages and semi-metayers
- 02Fixed money rentals and land ownership
- 03Growth and instability of Negro landholding
- 04Migration to town as escape
- 01Race contact and civilization
- 01Physical dwelling and residential color-line
- 01Training and leadership for freed laborers
- 02Industrial exploitation and racial prejudice
- 03Crop-lien abuses and land fraud
- 04Limits of black economic advancement
- 01Ballot power and Negro suffrage
- 02Disfranchisement and civic exclusion
- 01Negro crime and the legacy of emancipation
- 02Courts, chain-gangs, and public-school reform
- 01The color line and the Negro problem
- 01Social separation and public contact
- 02Almsgiving and relief
- 03The color-line in higher and lower life
- 01Mutual misunderstanding across the color-line
- 02Reciprocal causes of prejudice and social condition
- 03Union of intelligence and sympathy
- 01A Negro revival in the backwoods
- 02The preacher, music, and frenzy
- 01The church as Negro social center
- 02Church government, membership, and property
- 01African social roots and plantation transformation
- 02Baptist and Methodist formation of the Negro church
- 03Inner ethical life and religious fatalism
- 01Abolition, emancipation, and the Coming of the Lord
- 02Double life and ethical paradox
- 03Deception, compromise, and the price of culture
- 04Northern radicalism and church differentiation
- 01Birth and first sight of the child
- 02The child’s life under the Veil
- 03Illness, death, and burial
- 04Grief, hope, and the lifting of the Veil
- 01Crummell’s early life and the temptation of Hate
- 02Beriah Green and the Oneida school
- 03The call to the priesthood and the temptation of Despair
- 04Providence ministry and the temptation of Doubt
- 05Crummell’s refusal and years of wandering
- 06Return home, public service, and death
- 01Johnstown and Wells Institute
- 02John's departure from Altamaha
- 03Two Johns and divided expectations
- 01John Jones's transformation at the Institute
- 02The concert in New York and decision to return home
- 01John's cold homecoming and failed church welcome
- 02John's conversation with his sister and the Judge's warning
- 03The return of the other John and the schoolhouse tensions
- 01John's dismissal from school
- 02Assault on Jennie and John's departure North
- 01Sea vision and final confrontation
- 01The spiritual power of the Sorrow Songs
- 02From forgotten slave melodies to the Fisk Jubilee Singers
- 03Meaning of the songs as the slave's message
- 01The songs as centuries-old survivals
- 01Slave songs as veiled testimony
- 02Nature, toil, fear, and family in the lyrics
- 01Borrowed phrases transformed in slave songs
- 02Improvised hymn verses and short series
- 01Hope and justice in the Sorrow Songs
- 02The Negro people's gifts to America
- 03Eternal Good and the prisoned going free
- 01The Afterthought
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