Du Bois and diasporic identity: The veil and the unveiling project

Positioning Du Bois's arguments in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) within so cial theory enhances our understanding of the phenomenological dimensions o f radical oppression and of how oppressed groups build on members' differen ces,as well as on what they share, to construct a cosmopolitan and richly t extured community. Du Bois wrote Souls just at the beginning of the Great M igration but indicated that geographical dispersion would deepen racial sol idarity, enhance the meaningfulness of community, and emancipate individual group members through participation in mainstream society while maintainin g their black identity. Du Bois's writings have powerful implications for u nderstanding how to promote racial justice, and contemporary readers might consider that they have implications for social justice more generally. An analysis of black newspapers that were published during the period of 1900 to 1935 illustrates how Du Bois's conceptions were woven into discourse and everyday practices.