In The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of essays, W. E. B. Du Bois explains the harvest wonderful, a world wherein there are no color lines. Like the world in the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., it is a world that has yet to be realized. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. also, Du Bois argues in The Souls of Black Folk that it is beneath the dignity of any human being to beg for the rights that belong inherently to all mankind. When The Souls of Black Folk found publication it was immediately successful among the black community. In it, Du Bois rejected the strategy for fighting white supremacy proffered by Booker T. Washington, a strategy of accommodation. Instead, Du Bois argues for radical protest and helps develop a strategy that remained dominant among early 20th century black protestors in America. The book helped polarize the black movement into two camps, those who favored Washington’s conservative strategies and those who favored the more radical protest strategy of Du Bois.
In The Souls of Black Folk Du Bois eloquently argues that it is beneath the dignity of any human to have to beg for the rights that inherently belong to all mankind. Du Bois lived during segregation, a condition he refers to as the Veil, and he asserts that the color-line is the problem in 20th century America. Du Bois would live to see the Supreme Court ban segregation, but he also knew “how long overdue such achievements were, how difficult the struggle had been, and would continue to be, for black political and economic rights” (Ward iii). Du Bois covers different topics like the Civil War, the Southern police system, desegregation, black anger, and the power of the black preacher. The issues that Du Bois covers explore many of the issues that continue to hobble American race relations to this day. For example, the police system in the South described by Du Bois is one that left a bad taste and painful memory in the minds of many