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Plessy V. Ferguson's Theory Of Civil Rights

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For nearly a century, the United States was occupied by the racial segregation of black and white people. The constitutionality of this “separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life” had not been decided until a deliberate provocation to the law was made. The goal of this test was to have a mulatto, someone of mixed blood, defy the segregated train car law and raise a dispute on the fairness of being categorized as colored or not. This test went down in history as Plessy v. Ferguson, a planned challenge to the law during a period ruled by Jim Crow laws and the idea of “separate but equal” without equality for African Americans. This challenge forced the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of segregation, and in result of the case, caused the nation to have split opinions of support and …show more content…

The NAACP’s primary goal during Du Bois’ time was to invalidate the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson. He was fond of Booker T. Washington, mentioned earlier, and many of his own views surrounded the concept of double consciousness. Du Bois believed that as a result of Plessy v. Ferguson African Americans began to judge themselves based on white standards, ultimately leading to the internal acceptance of inferiority. He describes the state of double consciousness as, “a peculiar sensation this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others…” (143). In other words, black people have reached a state of double consciousness where they look at themselves in the way that white people look at them. It was commonly conceived by white people that African culture is inferior to their own. Du Bois later claims, “the sense of identity thrust upon black Americans living in a world in which white political and economic leaders assumed that to be American was to be white.”

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Du Bois uses many different ways to target the reader. His main purpose in “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, is to educate mistreated Africans American about demanding equality and rights that were promised to them around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. Du Bois uses different types of literary devices (mostly personifications) and firsthand accounts stories about injustice to make his point to the reader. For example, Du Bois states, “Will America be poorer if she replaces her brutal dyspeptic blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility?” (Du Bois 297).

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In the analysis of the abundance of wonderful leaders who made a difference in the African American community since emancipation, W.E.B Du Bois made a special impact to advance the world. From founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to his influential book The Souls of Black Folk, he always found an accurate yet abstract way of verbalizing the strives of African Americans as well as making platforms for them to be known. Although he had less power than most of the bigger named African American leaders of his time, W.E.B Dubois’ overweighing strengths verses weaknesses, accurate and creative analogies, leadership style, and the successful foundations he stood for demonstrates his ability to be both realistic and accurate in his assessment since emancipation. Though Du Bois did have a beneficial impact

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Dr. W.E.B Du Bois uses this essay to sway the audience of the insufficiency of the statements that Mr. Booker T. Washington has made about African Americans being submissive of rights and the creation of wealth. Mr. Washington believes that the black race should give up and give into what the society norms were at that time sequentially just to have a certain right. Dr. Du Bois refused to believe that the black race should give up one right to get another right. Especially, when the white South had all rights without expecting to give up anything to have those rights.

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DuBois’s first post-dissertation book, The Philadelphia Negro, released in 1899, determined that housing and employment discrimination were the principal barriers to racial equality and black prosperity in the urban North. (blackpast.org/aah/dubois-william-edward-burghardt-1868-1963) In his written book, The Souls of Black Folks, released in 1903, he argued for "manly" and "ceaseless agitation and insistent demand for equality” which demanded a education of equality for blacks that’s not inferior to whites. (W. E. B. Du Bois and the NAACP, Virginia Historical Society) Du Bois promoted the idea of self improvement, without giving up full citizenship rights, which impacted the general well being of African American and visualized the idea of having an exclusive group of all black, educated leaders called “The

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In 1903 Profound sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor W.E.B DuBois once proclaimed the biggest problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the color line in his critically acclaimed book The Souls of Black Folk Dubois dissects several themes as it relates to the Negro position in America. Although what DuBois describes as the “color line” was not the only problem that pervaded during his time and beyond in The Souls of Black Flock DuBois promotes the following ideas of slavery vs freedom, education, exclusion vs belonging, and material vs. psychological Racism as pivotal themes thought the book. Over the course of the book, DuBois coins the following terms “Double Consciousness” and

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Du Bois take on the Color Line Question: Class and Race in the Globalization Age William Edward Burghardt Dubois born in 1868 and died in 1963 was a Black American academic, activist for peace and civil rights, and socialist who wrote about sociology, philosophy, race equality, history and education. The evaluation of W.E.B Du Bois’s studies brings out social and intellectual initiatives especially his color line concept and its role to the history of African Americans (Butler, 2000). The color line concept is the role of racism and race in society and history. However, an analysis that is multidimensional which finds and evaluates the intersection of race together with class as modes of resistance and domination on national and international

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Du Bois described them as hopeless, voiceless, humiliated, disrespected, and ridicule and how society was too focused on politics and wealth. “Would America go poor if white people acknowledge black folk are human beings like any other?”

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Secondly, WEB Du Bois also viewed the veil as white people’s lack of clarity to see African Americans as “real” Americans. And lastly, WEB Du Bois viewed the veil as the Black people’s lack of clarity to see themselves outside of what white America sees them as. WEB Du Bois was an integrationist. WEB Du Bois believed that achieving social and political equality must come first before African Americans could hope to have their fair share of the United States of America. WEB Du Bois also believed that the Negro race "could only advance through its own self help and the assistance by whites of good will" (White 53).

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Du Bois wanted to show people what it was to African American in America. Du Bois belive that African Americans was held back from achieving equality. Du Bois’s double consciousness was about always looking at oneself through the eyes of others. Du Bois claimed that African Americans struggle with multi-faceted conception of self “a double consciousness”. In this

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Double consciousness is a theory first mentioned by W.E.B. Du Bois in his book “The Souls of Black Folk” which primarily focuses on the idea of double consciousness and analysis of “Black folk” in America during Jim Crow laws. Double consciousness was the theory of “a source of inward “twoness” putatively experienced by African-Americans because of their racialized oppression and disvaluation in a white-dominated society. ”(Pittman). Jim Crow laws--legalized segregation--kept African Americans from expressing their identity as Americans proudly when they were treated lesser than their white counterparts. In double consciousness many African Americans could not be able to choose one identity but rather a split of identities.

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The result of this divergent cycle is segregated and separate perspectives among whites and blacks that must change. Whites must acknowledge blacks as equal human beings, and blacks must show and demand a civilized community with equivalence in order to bring about this notion of equality. Du Bois primarily depicts this situation in his chapter “Of The Coming of

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Another term he used was ‘double consciousness’, which was how the African Americans viewed themselves as if they were looking at themselves in the eyes of the white people, their ‘masters’. Du Bois put into context that this is not the way America has to work anymore. For centuries, the African Americans were treated with hate and disrespect, they did not know how to view themselves after they received freedom. “Work, culture, liberty, - all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward the vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of brotherhood (8).” After the powerful words of Du Bois, the African Americans started to view themselves differently, in a more respected manner.

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This is a flawed argument, because, once again, to be considered anything more than a second class citizen, the African American people, just like any other oppressed minority, need to be guaranteed by their government, the same rights that are given to the other citizens. This is shown, when Du Bois’ text says “His doctrine has tended to make the whites, North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro’s shoulders and stand aside as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when in fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.” This excerpt from Du Bois text, just even further solidifies the claim that Du Bois has the stronger argument. Where Washington is putting the burden on the African American people, the real responsibility in this situation is the government’s, to make sure that all citizens are being afforded every right they

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In Du Bois’ the Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the 20th Century, he gives context that places the prejudice of America on a scale, he states, “This fissure between white and black is not everywhere of the same width. Naturally it is the widest in the former slave states and narrowest in the older and more cultivated east. It seldom, however, wholly closes up in New England, while it is threatening width in the south is the Negro Problem,” (Du Bois, 35). The color line in this sense is the fissure of the whites and blacks. The greatest depth of the line is that closest in the heart of the south.

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