“Some day the Awakening will come, when the pent-up vigor of ten million souls shall sweep irresistibly toward the Goal, out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where all that makes life worth living—Liberty, Justice, and Right—is marked ‘For White People Only’” (Du Bois155). The hardship experienced by African Americans refused to cease when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, it was at this point that it had only begun and the effects of double consciousness had already consumed the minds of many. Throughout this essay, the concept of double consciousness and its various counterparts will be explored through the historical era surrounding the very beginning of slavery and African American religion, all the way to the transformation of the Negro church and its lingering effects on American society.
Double consciousness, as defined by W.E.B. Du Bois, is “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” while existing as “An American, A Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body” (Du Bois 5). The earliest recollections of double consciousness were established through the first African slaves, brought to America against their will. The mentality that Africa was their home in which they would someday return to stood firm for a short while, until the slave lifestyle and various American influences tarnished their minds. American plantations prohibited African cultural practices, which in turn, took the slave’s identities and forces them into a complete transformation. Double consciousness had conditioned black identity, causing the slaves to be thrown into a state of identity crisis. Stripped from their African cultural identity, and forced into a very controlled version of American life, they were deprived the same cultural experience in America that the whites received. They had now entered a cultural purgatory of sorts—stuck between one culture and unable to make it to the other—now living through distorted eyes.
A huge proponent of double consciousness was the Negro church and the transformation thereof. The earliest roots of the Negro church and the Negro preacher did not begin in America, but in Africa. The earliest form of leadership was the chief who specialized in the worship of nature through sacrifice and the belief of all earthly influences. Once the slaves were brought from Africa to the West Indian sugar fields of America, they longed for the one thing that could not be taken from them—their faith. The new-and-improved chief within plantation life was coined the “medicine man” who served as a healer (Du Bois 147). It is from this figure that the Negro preacher, and the Negro church came to existence. The first Negro church was undoubtedly a more pagan version of the later-to-come Negro church, as it fell more into the category of voodooism. It was not until the Baptist and Methodist missionaries arrived that the Negro church was dubbed a Christian institution. The transformation of the Negro church was built upon a foundation of double consciousness. Plantation owners felt it necessary to Christianize those who originated from Africa because, if they were too attached to traditional African practices, they were not likely to make the best slaves. The conversion of Africans to Christianity was the white man’s method of assimilating slaves to an American society. This was also a form of submission because slave owners were able to gauge the extent of the slave’s Christian knowledge in order to placate the slaves, while keeping their hunger for faith under control without the risk of a slave revolt. Slaves were worshiping a man-made form of religion, unbeknownst to them that it was one of their greatest forms of oppression.
After the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, the Negro church was truly able to form into what they wanted in a religious institution. The freedmen reinterpreted the white religion to meet their oppressive needs influenced by their past experiences, hence why the Emancipation Proclamation is considered to be synonymous with the “Coming of the Lord” (Du Bois 151). This is where the fusion of African and true American religion occurs. The new-and-improved Negro church served as yet another form of double consciousness because the blacks designed the infrastructure of the church based on their perspective of the white churches. Their thought process alluded to the fact that their church had to be different because they were different—but are all Christians not all striving towards the same end goal and worshiping the same God? Church, for African Americans during this time, served as a refuge within an oppressive society where there was hope in a higher power. It provided a sense of autonomy because it was the one thing that they had complete control over. In addition to traditional church services, the black church also served as a recreational center for social gatherings, insinuating that they enjoyed spending the majority of their time at church. Aside from the power that African American’s felt as though they obtained through organizing their church, there are various other reasons as to why they spent copious amounts of time at church. Du Bois stated that within the three components that he believed successfully characterized the Negro church, one was said to be the preacher (Du Bois 143). The preacher was to be the center of the church, where he was then considered a black professional, which were oddities during this time. The black church was the one place where black professionals existed within a black professional class, which was simply unheard of. This is the definition of living within a state of double consciousness because they created this isolated environment where one of their own serves as the “boss” (Du Bois 143), which would be a rarity in a world where the blacks and whites coexisted during this time. They built a place of their own where they could be heard and serve as leaders because they knew that they could never be those things in the eyes of Americans. Within the walls of the Negro church there was no veil, because they said there was no veil. However, once reality poured over each of them as they stepped out of the church building, they resumed to live in a world where there were no black leaders and where their authoritative thoughts were deemed irrelevant. Between the Negro church and the outside world, African Americans lived a double life belonging to double social classes. The Negro church was a vessel for double consciousness.
From the sanctuary of a Negro church to the distance that spans above and below the Mason-Dixon line, double consciousness became a nation-wide, all encompassing mentality. Double consciousness took form in two dramatically opposing approaches to black religion and political thought. Within Du Bois’ time, the line dividing the North and South could truly be defined as the “color-line” which Du Bois describes as “the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men” (Du Bois 12). The first approach is that of hypocrisy and compromise, which was embodied in the South. The white South, where slavery once originated, indirectly mourned their loss of power, ownership, and the decreased amount of personal labor necessary that came with slavery. It is almost as if white Americans in the South obtained a common goal of embedding feelings of guilt within the former slaves because the former slave owners were now so “inconvenienced” without those to labor for them. With the abolition of slavery came the need for white Americans to maintain their feelings of superiority over African Americans even though, by law, they could no longer own them. In addition, they also were faced with the Jim Crow Laws that spanned from the Reconstruction period until 1965, which enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. It is becau
se of this that African Americans in the South were forced to live a censored lifestyle. They were almost brainwashed to believe that any act receiving praise or personal accomplishment was actually a form of “deception” and “lying” in regard to the whites (Du Bois 153). Du Bois himself even came to a point of gratitude for the death of his son in thanks that he would never have to live a life full of discrimination, something that should be mourned, however was praised because of the misconstrued mindset (Du Bois 160-161). They lived their lives through filtered thoughts, words, actions, and beliefs—only within were they truly themselves. In contrast, the North comprised more radical thoughts—some of revenge. The more liberal nature of the North encouraged a stronger black professional class consisting of more educated blacks—outside of the church! The freedom of speech reached across all ethnicities and religions, and although they each had unique cultures and opposing beliefs, the North enabled them to coexist peacefully. The Northern states went so far as to take a more aggressive and outspoken approach toward discrimination. Similarly, Du Bois stated that they “despise the submission and subservency of the Southern Negroes” (Du Bois 154). Although double consciousness manifested in American society as both radicalism and hypocritical compromise, there was a universal sense of hope in the fact that the two may, one day, harmoniously intertwine for the greater good of not only the nation as a whole, but also for the livelihood of the people therein.
In conclusion, the motif of double consciousness is prevalent throughout the entirety of The Souls of Black Folk. Its more detrimental counterparts took affect on the lives of early slaves, the Negro church, and the widespread battle surrounding discrimination between the North and the South. However, there are lingering effects of this infectious mindset on present day America. To this day, the Southern stereotypes still exist, although unfortunately, some may continue to identify with these stereotypes. “The South will rise again” is a phrase used far too much and racial slurs are no thing of the past. Hate crimes involving death, racial profiling in airports, and discrimination within the work place are not foreign concepts to Southerners in this day and age. There is undoubtedly a remaining difference in the acceptance of non-Caucasians between the Northern and Southern states, as the North still holds its place as the more liberal of the two. Although double consciousness and its affects still hover over American society today, through the knowledge and spread of Du Bois’ essays and experiences, as well as generational growth, the lives of Negros and Americans have now successfully become one.