The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge…”
Editor's note · Context
From his seminal work on Black identity, this passage introduces the concept of "double consciousness" and the struggle for self-realization among African Americans.
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This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius.
This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people,—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking false means of…
Fully ninety-four per cent have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom.
The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.