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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What kind of people does DuBois say the sorrow songs come from?
(a) Indomitable.
(b) Spiritual.
(c) Disappointed.
(d) Long-suffering.

2. What art form comes most directly from the Sorrow Song?
(a) Dixieland.
(b) Blues.
(c) Ragtime.
(d) Jazz.

3. What does DuBois say the sorrow songs grope toward?
(a) Return home.
(b) freedom.
(c) Justice.
(d) Rest.

4. What advantage do the farmers to rent for fixed money enjoy, according to DuBois?
(a) They benefit from their improvements
(b) They get lower prices on supplies.
(c) They can select their crops.
(d) They get better prices for their crops.

5. How does DuBois characterize the sorrow songs?
(a) catchy.
(b) Inescapable.
(c) Crushing.
(d) Weird.

6. What does DuBois say is the characteristic trend of his times?
(a) The expansion of capitalism through the globe.
(b) Contact of civilized and primitive people.
(c) The vanishing industrial base of the South.
(d) The development of labor-saving technologies.

7. What does DuBois say the sorrow songs are silent about?
(a) Love.
(b) Home.
(c) Family.
(d) Death.

8. Where is DuBois originally from?
(a) The White Mountains.
(b) The Berkshires.
(c) The Alleghenies.
(d) The Appalachians.

9. What aspect of his son did DuBois consider an evil omen?
(a) Six fingers.
(b) Blue eyes.
(c) A cough.
(d) Gold-tinted hair.

10. What does DuBois say should be the purpose of all striving in the twentieth century?
(a) That the fittest survive.
(b) That the meek inherit the earth.
(c) That the good, beautiful and true triumph.
(d) That justice reign on earth.

11. Why does DuBois say tenant farmers do not improve their land?
(a) They have no money.
(b) They have no incentive.
(c) They want to destroy it.
(d) They want to undermine their landlords.

12. What does DuBois say his wife had had to do, to produce their son?
(a) Be reborn.
(b) Sleep with death.
(c) Allow herself to be enslaved.
(d) Liberate herself.

13. In what way does DuBois say his son was fortunate?
(a) He was better loved than anyone else in DuBois’ family.
(b) He never had to contend with a world that would see him as inferior.
(c) He got to experience the sweetest part of life.
(d) He never learned language in order to curse being born.

14. When was Alexander Crummell born?
(a) The signing of the Constitution.
(b) The Atlanta Compromise.
(c) The Missouri Compromise.
(d) The Great Compromise.

15. Where do warriors spring from, in the myth of the Golden Fleece?
(a) Amputated fingers.
(b) Mutilated body parts.
(c) Dragon’s teeth.
(d) Warriors’ weapons.

Short Answer Questions

1. What consolation does DuBois imagine, for the likelihood that his son would have lived in a racist society, if he lived?

2. What did the whites in John’s hometown say about him going to school?

3. When does DuBois say universal suffrage a popular topic in the South?

4. How many churches are there for every black family in America, according to DuBois?

5. How does DuBois characterize the message that is contained in the sorrow songs?

(see the answer keys)

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