Du Bois’ work “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” examines the hardships which African Americans continue to face in this country. He breaks down the black experience from the moment which he realized he was different than his white classmates, up through the systematic oppression which follows him throughout his adulthood.

Beginning with how it feels to be a “problem”, Du Bois gives a vivid account of life beneath a colored veil. The peculiarity of being an outcast unworthy of opportunities granted to white men only creates strife in his adolescence. He dreams of reaching his own excellence rather than existing in the shadows of white man’s success. Du Bois finds himself continuously comparing himself to his oppressors only letting “him see himself through the revelation of the other world” but it is difficult to live “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others”. This sentiment is similar to that outlined in Kaplan’s work on identity. A great deal of stress can be created when one’s own personal identity differs from the identity being mirrored back by society. Du Bois labels this as a certain two-ness he experiences in the United States. His American identity conflicts with his black identity, but he knows that it is more advantageous to merge the two rather than succumb to one or the other. He wishes not to Africanize the American culture because he sees the beneficial ways in which this society functions. Still, he will not bleach his soul and eradicate his heritage. This identity crisis of sorts leads to immense cognitive dissonance which leads to despair across the black community and a sense of hopelessness.

Du Bois argues that emancipation would create a stable climate where the black man may flourish, but America is not holding true their guarantee of freedom. As a result, “the Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land’. There is a vast and deeply rooted prejudice that impacts every facet of life and success for an enormous community. This double consciousness leads to self questioning and doubt. Our society wants African Americans to be content with their place in civilization and submit to the agenda white men have given them. Du Bois articulates this deep sense of hopelessness and lack of motivation to strive for better because “we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve?”.

Du Bois paints a bleak picture of the African American experience. His accounts are vivid and personal, and opened my eyes to the deep strife that he has endured because of his identity. I am curious to know what solutions for this country he might have which would stop this cycle of systematic oppression. He speaks of emancipation and liberty, but no specific plan of action is mentioned. I would be interested in his ideas surrounding the means of breaking the flow of inferiority and hopelessness amongst his peers in a way which might kickstart a positive environment.

In this passage, Du Bois says ‘He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.’ I think this could still apply to the current society. I learn that there is phenomenon called ‘glass ceiling’ — an unseen ceiling that was built to block out minority people to rise to a higher level in a company. In a simpler way it means that someone of color maybe is capable to get in the higher management level of a company but he or she gets rejected because of his or her race. You might say isn’t the CEO of Google grew up in India and came to the US as an immigrant? But that is only a rare thing. What is more likely to happen nowadays is people of color getting treated unfairly in the workplace. About 85 percent of corporate executives and board members consist of white men, even though common sense is that companies with a more diverse demographics are 35% percent more likely to out-perform companies with a less diverse background.

‘After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son’, in this passage Du Bois ranks black race the lowest among all races. I think there should not be such ranking. It’s stupid for people to rank race. Every race has their own advantages and disadvantages. All culture has its pros and cons. But maybe the environment back in the day for black men to live in the United States was actually very miserable. But it is still not that good nowadays according to stats. According to the data coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research database, black men are more prone to death in a way that they experienced 27 more firearm homicides for every 100,000 people every year in the US (29.12 for black men vs. 2.1 for white men).

Another great example would be the story where a white lady, now known as ‘BBQ Becky’, called cops on a black family that were in the middle of a family BBQ get-together event. Though this news turned into a famous meme nowadays, people enjoy seeing the meme pictures of it, but the problem is still prominent today. This issue could have been solved by simply understanding each other more with better communication and less prejudice.

This also applies to women. The gender that were on average being treated more unfairly in the workplace. According to a research conducted by Marianne Bertrand, professor in Chicago Booth School of Business, women with college degree are often getting less salary. In 1985, about 40 % of women in America hold college degrees, compared to just under 30 % of men, yet women’s educational advantage has not led to higher pay.

In W.E.B Du Bois’s “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” he outlines the experience of being black in a post Civil War America. He goes into detail about his personal struggles with identity, and relates this to the African American community at the time. In his childhood, Du Bois was well aware of the differences between his peers and himself, and the prejudices that went along with being black. This only drove him to strive to be better than those aforementioned peers. He writes “That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads.” He needed to prove himself, to rise above the prejudices levied against him by his white peers. But even in his successes, Du Bois still felt the weight of being an outcast in a society that viewed him negatively.

Du Bois’s struggle for identity is a very central part of his text, and makes his writings very topical for our class. American society at the time viewed African Americans with “amused contempt and pity,” making it very difficult for Du Bois to reconcile these two identities. On this clash, what he calls “double-consciousness,” he states “One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body.” Du Bois wanted to maintain his identity as an American, but also his identity as a black man. And, due to the prejudices commonly held at the time, these two identities were often in conflict. This, according to Du Bois, is one of the main problems for African Americans. Though this identity clash led to Du Bois trying harder in his personal and professional life, many of his African American peers had more negative reactions to this double-consciousness. Du Bois writes of these peers, stating “With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?”

This article made for a very interesting read, especially when taking into account the topics relating to American identity discussed in class. Crevecoeur’s “What is an American.” for instance, tells a very different story than Du Bois. Crevecoeur writes of an America that accepts all industrious and virtuous people regardless of their origins. But this clearly was not the case for many living in America at the time. Du Bois’s personal experiences on the issue of American identity exemplify this. The same was true for Native Americans and women, who were both marginalized throughout America’s history. It also shows America’s latent ethnic nationalism. Despite slavery being abolished and African Americans being given the right to vote, many at the time still didn’t see them as Americans. Seeing the personal account of Du Bois makes is easier to see this clash for identity, and helps to show how important it is for someone to feel accepted among the groups in which they identify.

“Of Our Spiritual Strivings” by W.E.B. Du Bois discusses many of his experiences in a post-slavery America, where discrimination was still very present. A discriminatory relationship may have been the most prevalent relationship between the white community and African-American community during this time. In this reading, there are many things in this text that both surprised me and didn’t. I’ve heard about much of the discrimination that African-Americans faced in the post-slavery and reconstruction period, but it was still painful and heartbreaking to read about actual discrimination that Du Bois faced when he was simply a child. 

In this reading, it was extremely interesting to see how his main theme was discussed in many different ways, the topic being what it is like to be a problem. Du Bois discusses just how differently people are being treated simply due to their skin color. Du Bois, however, also decided that if people were going to treat him as a problem then we was going to work hard to actually be a problem. Du Bois decided that if people were going to treat him unfairly, he was going to work hard to take all possible opportunities he could from white Americans. “Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way.” Du Bois decided he was going to try and change how African-Americans were viewed in America, and he was going to do this by becoming as successful as possible and pursuing opportunities and careers that were typically associated with white Americans and make them associated with black Americans. 

After Du Bois discusses the impact he hoped to have on the African-American community, he also discusses the impact the black community had on the rest of America. “…there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes; there is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.” Du Bois wants people to know all the good that came from African-Americans. He even discusses the positives for the African-American community that occurred due to the discrimination during the Reconstruction Period. “Nevertheless, out of the evil came something of good,—the more careful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes’ social responsibilities, and the sobering realization of the meaning of progress.” Regardless of all the hate and discrimination that African-Americans faced during the post-slavery time, Du Bois wanted the readers to know that they were still successful in their endeavors.

This text was extremely interesting for me to read because it was very interesting to see the events of Reconstruction from the point of view of someone who actually experienced it. I feel like this article helped me learn so much about the events that actually took place and just how hard African-Americans worked to overcome and fight back, in their own way, against all the discrimination they faced.

In “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” W.E.B. Du Bois tries to encompass the brand new identity and what it means to be an African-American in post slavery America. Throughout the text, Du Bois is sure to make clear the difference between the then African slaves and the now emancipated African-American citizens while maintaining a central argument that their similarities and after effects of slavery cannot be overlooked. Du Bois also uses his own struggles within the eyes of re-constructionist white culture and the black culture that surrounds him to reinforce much of the narrative regarding the overall new struggle that African-Americans were facing. “One ever feels his two-ness,” Du Bois writes, “an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” The dual self that is now present in an African-American is what makes his struggle even more complex. What is perhaps most important in this excerpt is the idea that the while the African-American is free from the literal bonds and chains of slavery, he is still bound to the “nameless prejudice” and shortcomings that hinder his social, educational, and fiscal development. Du Bois sums up this point here when he says, “By the poverty and ignorance of his people, the Negro minister or doctor was tempted toward quackery and demagogy; and by the criticism of the other world, toward ideals that made him ashamed of his lowly tasks. The would-be black savant was confronted by the paradox that the knowledge his people needed was a twice-told tale to his white neighbors, while the knowledge which would teach the white world was Greek to his own flesh and blood.” It is the ignorance of the African-American people, endowed upon them not by themselves, Du Bois argues, that keeps them bound and still yearning for true freedom. True emancipation must be sought for in another way and this way is through “book-learning” and “the longing to know. Du Bois also begins to call for and foreshadow the coming of the civil rights movement. He does this by presenting the “nameless prejudice,” or racism as it is known today, as the foremost cause of ignorance that plagues the African-American population. However, only through striving for learning, knowledge, the power of the vote, and fair opportunity can the African-American overcome his obstacles that hinder his freedom. Analyzing this passage is endless in its interpretations, but what is most interesting is Du Bois’ call for self-reliance in terms of the African-American population raising itself from its impoverished depths. He doesn’t attempt to point fingers or urge his fellow people to revolt in anger but instead to use their own genius and their own innovation, skill sets, and willpower to overcome their hardships. Government reliance or reliance upon other people is never mentioned in his passage. The word government alone is never mentioned. While he does speak about gaining influence through the power of the vote, Du Bois also calls for this to be done by themselves while maintaining a sense of togetherness. This is important because it likely inspired the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s and its leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who echoed Du Bois in his call for peaceful protest, self-reliance, and togetherness in their fight for true freedom.

            I started this reading being very confused. The poem threw me off and then the essay began without an explanation or transition. I quickly realized that W.E.B Du Bois was writing about the way he grew up and the hardships he encountered as a black man in the United States. Despite being mocked and jeered at constantly he never lost his composure. It upset me when he told the story of how he had tried to give the new girl in his class a card and she refused it with a look of disgust, which is when he realized he was different. This anecdote was relatable as every young kid wants to be accepted by his/her peers regardless of their differences. I too would have plotted in my head to figure out a way to get ahead of those who disrespected me. I think Du Bois does a very good job here to appeal to the feelings of the reader regardless of their background.

            Du Bois writes, “One ever feels his two-ness, –an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” Du Bois talks of the daily struggle that a black man had to endure as a result of being a member of American society. It’s hard to fathom the strength it took to be in this situation and maintain the self-control that many people did as described by Du Bois. They had to live a double life, two lives that didn’t agree, two lives that were extremely hard to maintain, and as a reader this makes me feel the utmost respect for the strength exhibited by these men and women.

            Bu Bois continues to write about the impact that black culture and history played in the creation of the America we know today. He points out the fact that, “there is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.” Du Bois discusses the little things that allowed the Negro’s to have an identity for themselves. The whites prided themselves in making a lot of money and educating themselves and their kids. The general public in America was so caught up in their lives they failed to acknowledge the hardships the Negro population faced. The Negro men and women didn’t have much, but they were proud of their history and the little things that couldn’t be taken by the whites. They may not have been educated as the others or making money like the others, but they knew that if they kept their heads held high and minded their own business they too would one day live a better life.

            I really enjoyed reading this essay as it came from the perspective of someone who lived through the events he described. The account given by Du Bois is very complex and shows the challenges that Negros had to endure as second class citizens in America.

By Maddie Moses

After reading W.E.B. Du Bois’ intriguing piece named “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, I thought about what the author was saying through his writing. Du Bois states that there is essentially one  question that most white people want to ask black people. This question is: “How does it feel like to be a problem?” Du Bois first came to the realization that the color of his skin would make him a target in his early boyhood years. Du Bois attended an integrated school in Massachusetts, and as part of a class project, students were supposed to share cards with one another. To Du Bois disbelief a girl rejected his card with a hard glance. It dawned on Du Bois then that he was different and was going to be shut out by the world that white people lived in. Du Bois decided he was going to dedicate his life to being better at whites at mostly everything in life to feel superior over them. Instead of sitting around and letting the injustice overcome him, he decided to take action. He was going to pursue education and devote his life to helping people. Du Bois constantly asked God why he made him a problem, why he made him different. He couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that God created his race in the shadow of all of the other races. Why were they superior? The African American race represented more than a problem during this time, but rather a struggle. Following many years of captivity these individuals were trying to merge their African American heritage and their new found American identity. According to Du Bois “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. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa”. From this quote I can decipher that it became evident to Du Bois that America was essentially scared that blacks would try and africanize America, although that was utterly impossible considering just how advanced America was compared to Africa.These newly freed individuals were chasing one thing: acceptance in the land of the free. Du Bois was trying to not only escape white disdain, but also have better living conditions in America and be given the same opportunities that his white counterparts were given at the time. Years after the Emancipation, the struggle continued for Blacks.Within the United States black men had two different identities. One as a black man and the other has an American. Unfortunately these two identities could not be merged together. Although Emancipation was intended give  blacks they deserve while also providing them with various opportunities, all it did was provide limited freedom to a group that had been enslaved for centuries. I found it chilling to read this excerpt. In 2019 black people are still facing discrimination within our country. There is still a difference in being an American and being Black in America, which should not exist so many years down the line. It saddens me that so many years have passed since Du Bois wrote this essay and we are still facing similar struggles. Black people are still looked at as different in certain places when we should all be looked at as equal.

In the text “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” the author discusses the life of a black person in America. W.E.B. Du Bois elaborates on the idea that African Americans are seen as problems in society, and that despite the progress being made, their experiences are still vastly different and more difficult than others. The text also discusses how the narrator has an overwhelming urge to prove their white peers wrong by becoming great success in life, while other black people may succumb to the pressures of whiteness and ” shr[ink] into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white.” This touches on the idea that nonwhites can learn to be resentful of the overwhelmingly Caucasian world due to the lack of representation. The author even questions how one can be made to feel like a stranger in their own house due purely to the color of their skin. On this point, the idea that a Black man has a double consciousness is introduced conveyed as “An American and a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” This depicts a common struggle among African Americans where their Americanness and Blackness are perceived as separate when in fact the combination is what makes them who they are. One would not want to “Africanize America…He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism…He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.” I feel a very strong connection to what I read considering it shared similar parallels with my life. It was something I could easily relate to – especially the part about “[White people] should not keep these prizes…some, all I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head.” It strongly related to the feelings I have about constantly having to prove myself in a society where I am seen as inferior. It is not only my present life that pushes me, but knowing the struggles of my ancestors. Recognizing their hardships throughout their life just gives me more of a reason to succeed. Success in a minorities household I’ve found appears in a different form than non-minorities. Success doesn’t just mean your achievements are great accomplishments in your eyes, but to others around you. Succeeding as a person of color mostly means that you have surpassed what it means to be successful in the eyes of a white person. The idea that you can be deprived of certain opportunities because of the color of your skin is also relatable, because even if it hasn’t happened in my own life, I know it has for my relatives, and those loss of opportunities have affected my family to this day. A concept I want to remember from this reading is that a black person carries with them“the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear[s] it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers’ fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.” This messages reminds African Americans to never give up hope because after all the struggles we’ve been through, we are strong and can handle anything.

Reading “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” by W.E.B. Du Bois was really eye opening to me because it let me hear the thoughts and see through the eyes of a young black boy and his experience in an American World. It showed me the damaging impact the voices of others have on the human mind. This young boy was born into American culture where he was forced to look at himself through the eyes of others. Du Bois says, “I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows.” He explains how a veil divided him from other world…the world of the whites. Who created this veil? The whites created the veil from their own thoughts and ideas, and this little boy bought into it and became “okay” with it. He didn’t even want to try and cross to the other side because he was so used to being told that the place where he was at was where he was supposed to be. He was told that he was not as good as whites and that he didn’t deserve to bask in the opportunities that whites received. When someone, especially a child is told something repeatedly about themselves it eventually gets drilled in their heads that there is no other truth than that what has been spoken over them continuously. They will start to identify based on what everyone else tells them they are.

Is the power of outside voices solely a race issue or a gender issue? I know that it is not because I am a white female and I struggle with what other white people tell me, and their opinions about me when they don’t line up with my own. It makes me start to question “Am I really who I think I am?” This shouldn’t be how life is and people’s opinions shouldn’t affect one’s personal demeanor or lifestyle to the extent it did in the black community.

This black community lived in an environment that inflicted hate and contempt upon them. This skewed their thinking, their confidence, and their belonging. Du Bois included the things the black community began to believe and tell themselves, “we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men?” They were living in a society where most of the population did not want them to succeed in writing and did not want them to vote. The black community began to hear nothing else than these demeaning comments so they believed them as true and started to live that way, wanting or expecting it no other way. The human mind is a fascinating tool in the way that it is really good at taking in new information whether it be good or bad thus formulating emotions, and it is really bad at forgetting and pushing out information that has triggered emotions. I believe this is a big component on why we still have racial issues today. If our society today could only forget the past and start on a blank page, would racial injustice be more of a fleeting thought today?

For your first journal, you will write about your insights on“Of Our Spiritual Strivings”
by W.E.B. Du Bois considering the questions below :

What is the author saying?

What do I think and feel about what I just read or heard?

What parts are confusing?

Does this remind me of something in my own life?

What surprises me?

What questions do I have?

What connections do I see in the readings?

What am I most curious about?

The names, events, concepts I need to remember are ….

Are there interpretations or understandings that stand out for me? What is it about them that stand out for me?

What has changed in my thinking since/before I read this piece? From this standpoint, what do I still not understand?

◦Make sure your journal entry puts to use at least two direct quotations from the text.

◦The entry must be at least 500 words.

To post your journal on the blog page, click on “Write” at the top right corner of the page.