Chapter 1 Response

Although society has made some changes since the 1800’s some things will never change. The way people feel towards a certain race of people still remains the same. This prejudice whites feel towards blacks still remains in our hearts to this very day even though it has been over 200 years since slavery. No one will ever be able to understand what African Americans went through and still go through to this very day. In “The Souls of Black Folk” W.E.B. Du Bois lets America in on how he and just about every other African American felt in the years following the emancipation of the slaves. In Chapter 1 of “The Souls of Black Folk” he gives a detailed description of how it feels to be an African American in a time and place where you aren’t wanted.
In the first chapter Du Bois uses an extensive amount of detail. In one instance he describes a time when he tried to give one girl his card but she refused to take it. He doesn’t exactly say what skin color she is but what he writes next implies that she was white. “Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others…” (Du Bois.) Having to deal with something like that at such a young age can be very hard to overcome. It seems as though this was his first account of discrimination. Du Bois’ tone shifts from anger at whites for “beating around the bush” to sadness in realizing that he may never be treated as an equal to whites.