Gandhi's Response To William Edward Burghardt Du Bois The Souls Of Black Folk

In William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk (1903), he analyzes race as a social problem in the United States, asserting early in the book his goal for Black Americans: “This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture.to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius” (Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 11). In this quote, Du Bois summarizes his vision for the United States, a place in which all Black men and white men could share in developing a culture greater together than each of its parts, and in which all Black men harness their talents in society. In this essay, I will examine this quote, specifically considering how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi may respond to it based on his social theory in Hind Swaraj, in which he

All in all, Gandhi summarizes individual duties, saying, “What we want to do should be done, not because we object to the English or that we want to retaliate, but because it is our duty to do so” (Gandhi 117). Therefore, to use one’s best powers and latent genius for Gandhi would consist of taking the actions necessary to achieve Indian home rule, achieved collectively through each individual’s dedication to their duty. Ultimately, Gandhi would respond to Du Bois’ quote “This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture.to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius” (The Souls of Black Folk 11) with a level of nuance; he would object to setting a goal of becoming co-workers in the kingdom of culture, as his goal is not to share in culture with the English, but to maintain Indian civilization in its superiority. While emphasizing the inferiority of modern British civilization, however, he does lay out a few caveats - specifically, that no integrated technology should be revoked too quickly and that the English people, so long as they accept Indian civilization as superior, may remain in India.