In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois targets two audiences. One is the white audience among whose members the author wishes to illustrate the humanity, worth, and dignity of African Americans. The other is the African American audience, among whose members Du Bois attempts to communicate the richness of their heritage. In the first five chapters of The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois (4) discusses the ôveilö which separates whites from blacks and threatens to shroud African Americans in ways that rob them of their worth and potentiality. Du Bois argues that language more often than not, by signifying inferior qualities for blacks, keeps whites in a position of superiority and threatens to rob blacks of their rich heritage and potentiality.
The ability of language is undermine the worth of individuals is powerful. Distinctions between whites and blacks during Du BoisÆ era were ones that lent a superiority to whites and posited an inferiority onto blacks. For some individuals like Du Bois, these arbitrary distinctions wrought through language created a determination to succeed. For others, a majority of others; however, Du Bois (4-5) maintains that such distinctions caused stunted development, hatred, and bitterness: ôWith 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 washed itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in my own house?ö
Du Bois explains how emancipation, the right to vote, and other rights and liberties bestowed upon African Americans helped them move toward freedom and equality. Albeit in a rough and uphill battle. However, language through education became the most powerful movement that would help advance the cause of freedom and equality for African Americans. As Du Bois (8) writes, ôIt was the ideal of æbook-learning...