A peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness

Carolyn Ash
Denver, CO

In the opening chapter of his book The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois describes double consciousness as follows:

“One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”