Echo and Narcissus: The Afrocentric Pragmatism of W. E. B. Du Bois

Abstract

In unique assignment for Independent in 1904, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois reviewed his own book, Souls of Black Folk. He characterized style as African. Du Bois made no apology, contending that the blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off English restraint of my training and surroundings. The resulting accomplishment, he concluded, matter of taste. It lost in authority but gained in vividness because of its African perspective: It might tempt certain readers to contest every statement impatiently, but revelation of how world looks to me cannot easily escape even those readers. One who is born with cause -for so he assessed himselfis predestined to certain narrowness of view, and at same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which world often finds it to reckon.' world has found it well to reckon with Souls of Black Folk ever since. Du Bois's ideas about color line and double consciousness have guided discussion of race relations from moment book appeared. It received immediate attention not only from African Americans but on national and international scale as well. Booker T. Washington, whom Du Bois criticized severely in most controversial essay in book, saw to it that it received little notice in African American newspapers he influenced. Nonetheless, it was read widely. For many, including Langston Hughes andJohn Hope Franklin, it served as a cultural initiation rite. Several classic African American novels are based on its ideas. response of mainstream white press ranged from neglect to guarded praise to fanatical