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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does DuBois characterize Hippomenes?

2. What does DuBois say he shared with the townspeople where he was teaching?

3. How long ago did this teaching take place, from the moment of DuBois’ writing?

4. What are black and white doing together in the poem that opens Chapter 5?

5. In what way does DuBois say blacks are torn?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was the Atlanta Compromise?

2. Describe the growth of the population of blacks in Georgia from 1808 to the war.

3. What does DuBois say is the result of the Freedmen’s Bureau’s work?

4. What ideal would W. E. B. DuBois have American blacks follow?

5. Sam Hose appears a number of times in The Souls of Black Folk. What was his story—what does his name represent?

6. How does DuBois describe his schoolhouse?

7. What kinds of things is DuBois interested in when he describes the Black Belt?

8. What problem did freed blacks pose for the Union army, and what solution was ultimately found?

9. Whose influence does DuBois say has been superseded by the new authority of money?

10. What are the four periods of Southern education DuBois describes from the end of the War to the present?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Use this book as a meditation on the value of a five-star rating system. Is a five-star system sufficient to a book like this? Would you need to have sub-topics for the rating system, for plot, characterization, language, etc? What other sub-topics would you need? What value or importance gets lost in a five-star scale? Design a scale that would be better for this book.

Essay Topic 2

In what ways is The Souls of Black Folk relevant to contemporary readers? What contemporary issues are in play in the book, and how would the book contribute to contemporary discussion? Cite specific discussions from contemporary sources, and cite specific instances from the book, that describe its contemporary relevance.

Essay Topic 3

What is the role of the Sorrow Songs in DuBois’ vision of how American culture could evolve over time? Using examples from the text, particularly from the last chapter, assess the importance of the sorrow song in either removing the Veil or making it bearable.

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