The Souls of Black Folk 2

Towards the end of the text, I found the last few chapters difficult to follow. I had to reread a few of them to try to understand what was going on because Du Bois often times switched the focus of the stories, making it tough to follow who is doing what. However, even though the last chapter shifted from a narrative tone to a more subdued, historical tone, I still really enjoyed how all of the chapters were tied in together through their importance as a “sorrow song”. By tying each of the stories into the sorrow songs sung by the “Negros”, the stories became not just about the characters in them but the entire African American community that not only sang them but lived them. The stories are not just accounts of the characters in them but of the hardships of an entire race. I was also surprised that I recognized some of the songs used as examples in the last chapter, many of which I did not realize were sorrow songs of this time period. For example, I recognized “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” as the song that the bird in The Lion King sang when he got trapped with the bad lions. I did not know, however, that the true origins of the song came from this time of slavery and racial oppression; I probably did not really think about it that much when I was a small child watching the Lion King either. However, I found it especially astounding that such songs are still remembered and being sung today. It is amazing to see how these songs have been passed down and how their history has been preserved.