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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. What is John humming while he waits for the police?

2. What does DuBois say is the keynote of the Black Belt?

3. Which church refused to admit Alexander Crummell?

4. What does DuBois say we cannot hope for, not for some generations?

5. What art form comes most directly from the Sorrow Song?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does John Jones change on account of his semester away from school?

2. How did Alexander Crummell overcome the temptation of Doubt?

3. What is the reason for this tragic anecdote, as the penultimate chapter, coming on the heels of the previous, more triumphant chapter, as it does?

4. What factors does DuBois say have led to crime among blacks?

5. How does DuBois characterize the Music in the Southern Negro revival meeting?

6. What is DuBois’ final hope for his book?

7. How does this chapter differ from the previous chapters?

8. What vision does DuBois have, of a future for American blacks?

9. What is DuBois’ relation to death, in Chapter 11?

10. What took John so long to go home?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When is The Souls of Black Folk most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 2

Outrage over slavery is almost inescapable, but DuBois largely avoids it. Still, he has to include it in some way. Using examples from the text, describe how DuBois both includes and proposes to reconcile the powerful feelings that are associated with the history of black exploitation in the South.

Essay Topic 3

What is missing from this book? What should have been covered or presented that was not? What is the effect of this absence? Describe an element that ought to have been covered, and explain why it would have made the book stronger.

(see the answer keys)

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