The Souls of Black Folk Chapter VII Summary & Analysis

VII. Of the Black Belt

Summary

Du Bois begins with a description of riding in a train car through Georgia. He mentions past events and how the state has the largest population of Black citizens in America, at the time. Arriving in Albany, he mentions conflict with the Cherokee and Creek natives, who lived in Georgia before being forced westward, creating the “cornerstone of the Cotton Kingdom.” He describes Albany as a “real capital,” in that it is a county town where 10,000 different people converge on Saturdays to shop and interact. He travels the Albany countryside and observes all the field workers on land that used to be slave plantations.

Du Bois contrasts the hard-working poverty that he finds in Dougherty County with its former prosperous cotton industry that was valued at over three million dollars before the war. He encounters many run-down properties where the laborers are in debt to the owners and the owners are in debt to those who run the markets. He finds most of the farms and inhabitants bitter and sad. He does find some prosperity in the northwest of Dougherty County, where there is a larger proportion of white people and more successful individuals of both races. However, he still hears stories of Black individuals who had their land taken after purchasing it (and other unfair treatment).

Analysis

Du Bois uses the State of Georgia as a microcosm for how African Americans and minorities are mistreated throughout the South. By noting that white people in Georgia have a long history of mistreating people from other races, Du Bois establishes a pattern of racism. The high concentration of Black people in Georgia, a state with a long growing season and proximity to shipping routes, is not by chance. Even though they cannot expect fair treatment from white owners, Black people have settled in this area because work is plentiful. However, the Jim Crow laws enforced in Georgia are not intended to keep Black and white people apart as Black people are too integral to the state’s economy. These laws are enforced in order to hinder Black people from taking advantage of certain opportunities and to give white people the option to refrain from having to mix with Black people. The existence of a segregated car on the train is an example of how Jim Crow laws focus on the perceived social ease of white people at the expense of fairness to Black people. Even on the same train, Black people must remain behind The Veil.

Du Bois’s descriptions of despondent people and the desolate countryside contrasts the reality of life in the South with the hopes and dreams of Emancipation. Du Bois records the experiences of the people he meets in the Black Belt because he believes that written history is important, both for the Black people who are part of that history and for the white people who will read about them. The oral tradition of slavery means that stories were memorized and passed down or forgotten, and Du Bois uses his portrayals to dramatize the poverty and hopelessness of freedmen in the South for a white audience who would have otherwise had little understanding of or concern for their suffering.

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