the right to a good quality education.

In such a deeply racist society, this necessitated the establishment of separate educational institutions for African-Americans. Du Bois believed that these institutions had a vital role to play in educating the so-called "talented tenth," the name he gave to the intellectual and cultural elite of the African-American community. This explains Du Bois's emphasis on a broad, liberal-arts education as opposed to Booker T. Washington's more narrow focus on technical and vocational education.

If we examine a couple of themes from the work, education becomes a critical part of addressing these realities.  For DuBois, African- Americans (and all people of color) have deal with the reality of "the color line."  This is an undeniable demarcation that helps to distill reality as being different between White America and Black America.  Its presence, Du Bois argues, is evident in all aspects of life.  Within this realm, DuBois suggests that it cannot be obliterated.  Yet, in understanding its realities bettern, those who are African- American can better navigate its effects.  This is where education comes to play a vital role.  DuBois is too smart to capitulate to an "opportunity ideology" belief that "education solves all."  Rather, he suggests that education is the realm where the color line and its pervasive reality in political, social, economic, and psychological realities can be understood and changed.  Like his own narrative, DuBois argues that education is the only way that full comprehension and solidarity is evident for those who live at the hyphen of being African- American, in that one gains knowledge for their own sense of understanding the dynamics of the color line driven world and then passes it on to others so that they experience the same understanding.  It is through this where DuBois finds hope and redemption and this process is only possible through education.

W.E.B. DuBois a gifted writer, educator, and advocate to the African American race, graduated from Harvard University  in 1890 and later attended the University of Berlin. Later, in Philadelphia he embarked on a research project in the seventh ward slums looking for a "cure" to the prejudice against colored people. He taught sociology at Atlanta University for thirteen years before becoming the head of research at the NAACP.

Dr. DuBois was a staunch advocate for social reform and the education of the "colored" race. He was a firm believer in the concept that the colored man can change his circumstances through training and education.

The role of education according to DuBois was one of social change, he felt that a better educated black man could work to achieve an equal footing in the world with his white counterparts. He felt that education could solve the problems of bigotry, inequality, and discrimination.

The Enduring Vision/Clark/p. 228-230

In the opening chapter of The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois expresses that education is far more important for obtaining true freedom than even the right to vote. He states that, immediately following Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the African American saw the right to vote as a "visible sign of freedom" and as the "chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him" (Ch. I, para. 9). However, he also says that, as time progressed, the African American began to see that education, or "book-learning," was the true means of gaining freedom because education is the only true means of gaining equality with whites. He further argued that, though obtaining education is the longer and harder path, it is the only way to achieve new heights of equality, as he says in the following passage:

Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight, leading to heights high enough to overlook life. (Ch. I, para. 9)

Regardless, in Chapter IV, Du Bois also talks about just how hard it was for young African Americans to obtain "book-learning" due to social inequalities. After becoming educated as a teacher, he went on a long, arduous trek to find a school to teach in and finally found one; however, keeping the children in the school often proved to be just as hard of a task due to the students' poverty. The boys were frequently taken out of the school so that they could help harvest the crops on the family's crop share, and the girls were frequently taken out of the school because they were needed to help out at home. However, he also speaks of the students' dedication to learn, even when more and more hardships make it impossible for them to continue at the school. Regardless, even after Du Bois himself leaves the school, the school remains in existence, having been purchased by the county. Du Bois acknowledges that the county purchasing the school can be called "Progress," yet continues to see just how much his people's suffering and oppression makes it seem as if "Progress" is not really being achieved, as he says in his final paragraph:

How shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And all this life and love and strife and failure,--is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day? (Ch. IV, para. 24)