W. E. B Dubois Double Consciousness Essay

W.E.B. Du Bois was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. He also was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also known as the NAACP. Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican-born black nationalist who is known for creating the 'Back to Africa' movement in the United States and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, also known as the UNIA, which spread through not just the U.S, but the Caribbean, Canada, and Africa. He later became an inspirational figure for civil rights activists and known as a hero to many Jamaicans. In 1897, Du Bois created a theory called double consciousness that was in his article, Struggles of the Negro People. Double consciousness is a term to describe a person whose identity is divided into several facets or phases. W.E.B Du Bois explains how double consciousness is very prominent in the African American community. He compares it to himself by saying how it is like “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. ” This is explaining how being an African

This concept was called the veil, which suggested 3 main points which explained the essence of what it is to be an African American. First, it explained the physical aspect of the veil, which displayed how African Americans were of a darker complexion than whites, which thus led to delimitation. Second, it suggested the lack of clarity white people see in African Americans as “true Americans” or their equals. Finally, the veil explains the lack of clarity to see outside of what white people think and establish for them. This can be compared to double consciousness because both explain the painful feeling of being African American in a white