Contradictory Love

I was thoroughly moved by the writers James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. Du Bois as the last of our overview of American literature. I was impressed with their stance in defending their race while retaining a high degree of objective studiousness in the “race problem.” The ideas poised by Johnson in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man were astute and challenging. However I can not say that I enjoyed the story. For the character’s plodding insistence in pursuing his gross desire of breaking into an inner ring of society grew tiring. The lack of any characters with higher ideals made the story grow long and the insights from the character lack force. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk filled his discourse with virtues to strive after. His argument is strong and brings to the reader not only a compelling view of the equal treatment of colored people as a race but the personal recognition that needs to coincide with this. He argues for rights but also the respect to be treated like a man. I was watching the movie Glory a few weeks back and was equally moved by a speech given by one of the soldiers of the first black regiment in the civil war. His argument was similar, possibly derived, from Du Bois thought; he argued that, yes, the black race was uncivilized at present but that this should not disqualify them from respect as men. Du Bois appeals not in the context of gross northern financial advancement like Johnson, but as a man embodying uplifting culture. His people he argues, “generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse” (900). Never the less it seems as if our nation did (to Martin Luther King?) despise just these principles, in north and south, ending with an entrapping curse. Johnson depicts this curse of the nation well as polarizing the “race problem” in both North and South in two different ways;

"Northern white people love the Negro in a sort of abstract way, as a race; through a sense of justice, charity and philanthropy, they will liberally assist in his elevation…Yet, generally speaking, they have no particular liking for individuals of the race. Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such; but for certain individuals they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways" (80).