W.E.B. DUBOIS Stephanie Filice Mr. Carter AFAS 160 D Author Discussion 05/31/13

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963  Great Barrington, Mass. Ghana, Africa  Good Childhood, Death of Mother, Racism in college, Harvard Grad  First African American to earn a doctorate  Civil Rights Activist : Co Founder of National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (Niagara Movement, Talented Ten)

WORKS  A Litany of Atlanta  The Song of the Smoke  The Souls of the Black Folk The Forethought Of Our Spiritual Strivings Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others Of Meaning and Progress

A LITANY OF ATLANTA  Page 689  Poem written in 1906  Response to his reaction of the Atlanta Race Riot  One of his first real experiences with racism and writing  “ A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the midnight; clang, crack and the cry of death and fury filled the air and trembled underneath the stars when church spired pointed silently to thee. And all this was to sate the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of vengeance!” ( DuBois 690)

THE SONG OF SMOKE  Page 691  Poem Written in 1906  Black Pride, Smoke King= Black Person with light skin  Lighter the Skin the better, because at time they could pass for a white person  Du Bois= Light skinned black back  Reputation- “I am the Smoke King”, Rhyme Scheme- 2x lines “ I am the Smoke King, I am black! I am darkening with song, I am hearkening to wrong! I will be black as blackness can— The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man! For blackness was ancient ere whiteness began. I am daubing God in night, I am swabbing Hell in white: I am the Smoke King I am black”( DuBois 692).

THE SOULS OF THE BLACK FOLK: THE FORETHOUGHT  Page 692, Written 1907  Introduction to novel  Prepares readers, Speaks of issues of life of the author  Song Lyrics before each piece of work  “ I add that I who speak here am none of the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that live within the Veil?” (DuBois 693)

OF SPIRITUAL STRIVINGS  Page 693, Written 1903, Song by Arthur Symons  Song about the sea  Speaks of alienation of African Americans from White America  Viewpoint of a child, struggle to be both negro and citizen  Du Bois chose to face adversity, instead of hide behind it (made his goal education)  "I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep though, I held all beyond it in common contempt and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows" (DuBois 294.)

OF MR. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND OTHERS  Page 699, Song By Byron  Rejecting Washington’s willingness to avoid criticism of racism  Calls for African American Pride, Political Power, Civil Rights, and Higher Education of Youth  Asks for nine things, in sets of three (Page )

OF THE MEANING OF PROGRESS  Page 708, Song by Schiller (In German)  Recalls his first experience as a teacher in Tenn.  Written as a narrative, Jim Crow Laws,  Trying to instill sense of meaning for African American education  Irony (shown in title), message to the people  -“yet there was among us but a half-awakened common consciousness, sprung from common joy and grief, at burial, birth, or wedding; from a common hardship in poverty...., above all, from the sight of the Veil that hung between us and Opportunity” DuBois (709).

THEMES  (Based on elements in work, and background information from life)  God/Bible- Of Meaning of Progress  Racism- A Litany of Atlanta.. Etc.  Patriotism- Of Spiritual Strivings  Education- Of Mr. Booker T. Washington, Of the Meaning of Progress

WORKS CITED  Bio.com. Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 08 May Web. 31 May  Gates, Henry Louis., and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, Print. Eleventh.  "Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 May