Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:37:22.647Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Children of Double Consciousness: From The Souls of Black Folk to the Brownies' Book

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Mason Phillips
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In The Souls of Black Folk (1903) W. E. B. Du Bois suggests that the history of double consciousness lies in childhood as the crisis that brings an end to the “days of rollicking boyhood.” Yet in his children's literature, written in the teens and twenties, Du Bois returns to the scene of double consciousness in an effort to transform this experience. In the children's numbers of the Crisis and in the Brownies' Book, Du Bois confronts a new problem for the twentieth century: how to raise black children in the face of disillusionment and despair. Collectively, Du Bois's works for children respond to this problem by crossing the line that separates youth and age. The systematic dualities of innocence and violence in these writings represent a revised effort to guide the black child's entry into double consciousness and to repurpose double consciousness as a model for a resilient black subjectivity beginning in childhood.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 128 , Issue 3 , May 2013 , pp. 590 - 607
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 The Author(s)

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Andrews, Steve. “Toward a Synaesthetics of Soul: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Teleology of Race.” Re-cognizing W. E. B. Du Bois in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Keller, Mary and Fontenot, Chester J. Jr. Macon: Mercer UP, 2007. 142–85. Print.Google Scholar
Balfour, Lawrie. Democracy's Reconstruction: Thinking Politically with W. E. B. Du Bois. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Robin. Racial Innocence. New York: New York UP, 2011. Print.Google Scholar
Bishop, Rudine Sims. Free within Ourselves: The Development of African American Children's Literature. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2007. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, Horace Mann. Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Negro Freedom Movement 5.1 (1965): 16. Print.Google Scholar
Brownies' Book. Advertisement. Crisis Sept. 1919: 275. Print.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43 (1991): 1241–99. Web. 7 July 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickerson, Vanessa D. Dark Victorians. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, Nina. Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois. 8-15 Aug. 1914. MS 312. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. Ser. 1A (pt. 1). Spec. Collections and U Archives. U of Massachusetts Amherst Libs.Google Scholar
Du Bois, Nina. Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois. 31 Oct.-15 Nov. 1914. MS 312. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. Ser. 1A (pt. 1). Spec. Collections and U Archives. U of Massachusetts Amherst Libs.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “The African Roots of War.” Atlantic Monthly May 1915: 707-14. Du Bois Central: Spec. Collections and U Archives. U of Massachusetts Amherst Libs. Web. 13 Jan. 2012.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “Children's Number.” Editorial. Crisis July 1923: 103. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “As the Crow Flies.” Crisis June 1920: 183-84. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “As the Crow Flies.” Crisis Nov. 1920: 332-33. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “As the Crow Flies.” Crisis July 1921: 206-07. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “As the Crow Flies.” Crisis June 1929: 187. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil. 1920. Mineola: Dover, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “The Immortal Children.” Editorial. Crisis Oct. 1916: 267-68. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. Letter to Yolande Du Bois. 10 Nov. 1914. MS 312. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. Ser. 1A (pt. 1). Spec. Collections and U Archives. U of Massachusetts Amherst Libs.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “Of the Children of Peace.” Editorial. Crisis Oct. 1914: 289-90. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “Opinion of W. E. B. Du Bois.” Crisis Oct. 1922: 247-53. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “Our Baby Pictures.” Crisis Oct. 1914: 298. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. 1903. New York: Penguin, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “The Talented Tenth.” The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative American Negroes of To-day. New York: James Pott, 1903. 33–75. California Digital Library. Web. 15 Apr. 2012.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “The Training of Negroes for Social Power.” W. E. B. Du Bois Speaks: Speeches and Addresses, 1890-1919. Ed. Foner, Philip S. New York: Pathfinder, 1970. 130–41. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “The True Brownies.” Editorial. Crisis Oct. 1919: 285-86. Print.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. “Worlds of Color.” Foreign Affairs 3.3 (1925): 423–44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Jan. 2012.Google Scholar
Edwards, Brent Hayes. “Late Romance.” Next to the Color Line: Gender, Sexuality, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Ed. Gillman, Susan and Weinbaum, Alys Eve. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007. 124–49. Print.Google Scholar
Gillman, Susan, and Weinbaum, Alys Eve. “W. E. B. Du Bois and the Politics of Juxtaposition.” Introduction. Next to the Color Line: Gender, Sexuality, and W. E. B. Du Bois. Ed. Gillman, and Weinbaum, . Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007. 1–34. Print.Google Scholar
Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. Print.Google Scholar
Ginsberg, Lesley. “Of Babies, Beasts, and Bondage: Slavery and the Question of Citizenship in Antebellum American Children's Literature.” The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Levander, Caroline F. and Singley, Carol J. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2003. 85–105. Print.Google Scholar
Harris, Violet J. “African American Children's Literature: The First One Hundred Years.” Journal of Negro Education 59.4 (1990): 540–55. Print.Google Scholar
Harris, Violet J. “Race Consciousness, Refinement, and Radicalism: Socialization in the Brownies' Book.” Children's Literature Association Quarterly 14.4 (1989): 192–96. Project Muse. Web. 25 Mar. 2012.Google Scholar
James, William. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1. 1890. New York: Henry Holt, 1931. Print.Google Scholar
Johnson-Feelings, Dianne. Afterword. The Best of the Brownies' Book. Ed. Johnson-Feelings. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 335–46. Print.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Amy. The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Knoepflmacher, U. C., and Myers, Mitzi. “From the Editors: ‘Cross-Writing’ and the Reconceptualizing of Children's Literary Studies.” Children's Literature 25 (1997): vii-xvii. Project Muse. Web. 13 Jan. 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kory, Fern. “Once upon a Time in Aframerica: The ‘Peculiar’ Significance of Fairies in the Brownies' Book.” Children's Literature 29 (2001): 91–112. Project Muse. Web. 25 Mar. 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David Levering. “A Small Nation of People: W. E. B. Du Bois and Black Americans at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” A Small Nation of People: W. E. B. Du Bois and African American Portraits of Progress. Ed. Eubanks, W. Ralph et al. New York: Amistad, 2003. 23–49. Print.Google Scholar
Locke, John. Some Thoughts concerning Education. Some Thoughts concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Ed. Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996. 1–161. Print.Google Scholar
M. A. H. “Another Lynching.” Crisis Oct. 1916: 275-76. Print.Google Scholar
Posnock, Ross. “How It Feels to Be a Problem: Du Bois, Fanon, and the ‘Impossible Life’ of the Black Intellectual.” Critical Inquiry 23.2 (1997): 323–49. JSTOR. Web. 18 Apr. 2011.Google Scholar
“Shadows of Light.” Crisis Oct. 1916: 285-88. Print.Google Scholar
“Shadows of Light.” Crisis Oct. 1918: 285-88. Print.Google Scholar
Sinnette, Elinor Desverney. “The Brownies' Book: A Pioneer Publication for Children.” Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Negro Freedom Movement 5.1 (1965): 133–42. Print.Google Scholar
Smith, Katharine Capshaw. Children's Literature of the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Smith, Shawn Michelle. Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Smuts, Alice Boardman. Science in the Service of Children, 1893-1935. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundquist, Eric J. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Cambridge: Belknap-Harvard UP, 1993. Print.Google Scholar
Tate, Claudia. Introduction. Dark Princess. By W. E. B. Du Bois. Jackson: Banner, 1995. ix-xxviii. Print.Google Scholar
Vann, Robert L. Letter to W. E. B. Du Bois. 21 Jan. 1936. Selections, 1934-1944. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1976. 124–25. Print. Vol. 2 of The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois. Ed. Herbert Aptheker. 3 vols. 1973-78.Google Scholar
Zamir, Shamoon. Dark Voices: W. E. B. Du Bois and American Thought, 1888-1903. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. Print.Google Scholar