View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does DuBois say is the tragedy of the age?
(a) That virtue is typically powerless.
(b) That wickedness is rewarded with profit.
(c) That violence is tolerated and approved.
(d) That men know so little of men.

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

3. What effect does DuBois say the sorrow songs had on him, the first time he heard one?
(a) It transported him back to the South.
(b) He recognized it immediately.
(c) It reminded him of his mother’s voice.
(d) He was frightened by it.

4. What does DuBois say is the world’s most piteous thing?
(a) A dead child.
(b) A childless father.
(c) An empty cradle.
(d) A childless mother.

5. What consolation does DuBois imagine, for the likelihood that his son would have lived in a racist society, if he lived?
(a) He might always have returned to Africa.
(b) The times might have changed by the time he matured.
(c) He might have become the leader who would change things.
(d) He might have borne it lighter than he himself had.

6. What did the whites in John’s hometown say about him going to school?
(a) It would corrupt him.
(b) He would never return.
(c) It would help the community.
(d) It would spoil him.

7. How does DuBois characterize the process of land valuation in the Black Belt?
(a) Standardized.
(b) Mathematical.
(c) Idiosyncratic.
(d) Scientific.

8. What is the dominant crop in the land DuBois describes?
(a) Corn.
(b) Cotton.
(c) Vegetables.
(d) Wheat.

9. What does DuBois say is the keynote of the Black Belt?
(a) Debt.
(b) Bitterness.
(c) Hope.
(d) Training.

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

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

12. What was the Port Royal experiment?
(a) Northerners came to teach blacks during the war.
(b) Blacks were given abandoned plantations to run.
(c) Northerners adopted slaves to get them out of the South.
(d) Blacks were given arms to fight against the South.

13. Why did John kill the white John, son of the Judge?
(a) For groping his sister.
(b) For pure spite.
(c) For an insult.
(d) For theft.

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

15. What is the chief form of relations between blacks and whites in the South, according to DuBois?
(a) Politics.
(b) Economics.
(c) Physical proximity.
(d) Religion.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Alexander Crummell finally practice as a minister?

2. What was the first change in the Africans’ lives, according to DuBois?

3. What kind of cabin does DuBois say is the exception the rule?

4. Where was John Jones from?

5. Which is NOT one of the components of the Southern Negro Revival?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 542 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample