Returning+Soldiers+(Block+56)

 ** W.E.B Dubois **
 * Febrary 23, 1869 - August 27, 1963**

W.E.B. Dubois
 * Born on February 23, 1869 in Massachusetts and died on August 27, 1963.
 * Was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
 * Fought discrimination and racism throughout his life.
 * Was the editor of the magazine, //The Crisis.//
 * He has written 17 books and edited 4 journals.
 * He was the first African American to earn a PH.D. from Harvard University in 1895.

**About "Returning Soldiers "**
 * It was written about the African American soldiers returning from World War I, and the struggles that they faced upon return.
 * Even though Dubois gives all of the examples of how America has treated African Americans, he still believes that it is a good place, and can be one of the best places to live. **Ex**: "Make way for Democracy! We saved it from France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why." Meaning that he believes that one day America will be good to the African American people.

__Disfranchisement__; //their rights were taken away simply because of their skin color.// __Ignorance__; "It has never really tried to educate the Negro. A dominant minority does not want Negroes educated. It wants servants, dogs, whores and monkeys." //The African American people were not educated and nobody really cared enough to do so, so they had to deal with living their lives not knowing much because of the fact that they were almost denied the right to learn.// __Insults__; "It has organized a nation-wide and latterly a world-wide propaganda of deliberate and continuous insult and defamation of black blood wherever found" //This means that at the time, it was impossible for a black person to go anywhere or do anything without someone pointing out, or just noticing, the fact that they were inferior to the white man. It was almost as if it were a rule to make it known whenever an African American is present that they are less than "//the dirties white dog."
 * Aspects of African American Literature**
 * **Proud to be American:** "This is the country to which we Soldiers of Democracy return. This is the fatherland for which we fought! But it is //our// fatherland. It was right for us to fight. The faults of our country are our faults. Under similar circumstances, we would fight again." //Is an example of how the African American population was proud to fight for this country of theirs, and they are proud to say that they would fight again.//
 * **Obstacles:** __Lynchings__; //the black population lived in fear because// "Yet for fifty years we have lynched two Negros a week, and we have kept this up right through the war."



[|Returning Soldiers]