The Souls of Black Folk Chapter 7 Lit response

Life for blacks in the United States was still rough even after the Civil War. Once slaves got their “freedom”, they had to try to make it with many factors going against them. Discrimination was a huge factor that held back many blacks from live the normal, American life. In chapter 7, W.E.B. Du Bois talks about many situations and experiences he has witnessed with black people, mainly in the South.

Du Bois main focus is the treatment of black people in the South. He calls it the Black Belt which is the deep southern states, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, etc. White people were very racist there and it was hard for them to accept blacks in the society. As hard as blacks worked, they were still pushed back steps as soon as they took one. Du Bois talks about a twenty-two year old black man who had recently got married and got a home for him and his wife. They rented the home, however the cotton industry was falling so they had no way to pay for their home. Their house was seized and they were left with nothing. This is a good example on how black people back then tried to make it, but they had little to depend. The plantations ended up being a part of their lives even if they were free or not.

For the South, cotton was everything. Cotton made their economy, and whites needed the help of slaves to keep their plantations running. Without slaves, they would be losing out on money. “…the merchants are in debt to the wholesalers, the planters are in debt to the merchants, the tenants owe the planters, and laborers bow and bend beneath the burden of it all” (Du Bois, 154). Either way, blacks were never really able to leave the plantations. They were never able to really get a life outside the plantation because the whites needed them and blacks needed the low wages they got paid so they can try to make it on their own.

The way blacks got treated in the south was unfair and wrong. They were never able to really have a stable life and be able to raise a family like it’s supposed to be done. Blacks got paid little for their labor and were beat in return. In chapter 7, Du Bois points out several experiences to get his readers to feel and see what slaves had to go through back then.