Jim Crow. Segregation. Discrimination. These terms centered themselves in W.E.B Du Bois’s life, mind, and soul. With the racism he faced during his life, simple words could not describe his feelings and attitude. Due to the racial injustice, Du Bois expresses himself by using various rhetorical strategies to convey his anger and disappoint in America to his audience, White and Black Americans, during Jim Crow and Segregation.
To connect to white and black Americans, Du Bois prefers to speak directly to his audience by using “you”. For instance, revealing the horrors and unfairness of discrimination, Du Bois casually says “if you wish to ride with me, you must come into the Jim Crow Car” (Du Bois 142). With this, Du Bois actively invites white Americans to enter and experience the same environment Jim Crow laws created for African Americans. Du Bois talks to the audience again when referring to cotton fields, asking “have you ever seen a cotton-field white with the harvest” (Du Bois 162). Du Bois refers to the time of slavery hoping to strike a nerve with both his white and black audience. In both instances, readers become more alert and focused on Du Bois's overall message. By making his essays more personal to the reader, Du Bois effectively gained more control over the situation because now he owns the audience's attention. The diction in his essays experience a consistent rate of change. …show more content…
By manipulating and selecting his words carefully, Du Bois gains the ability to convey a somber tone in chapters like eleven and nine. For example, when Du Bois’s son fell ill and drew closer to death, Du Bois stated “[then] Fear crouched beside the little bed” (Du Bois 229). By capitalizing “fear”, “fear” gains a presence, a shape. It becomes a “thing”, or a creature, that possesses weight and influence. This statement successfully creates a somber tone surrounding the event of Du Bois losing his only son. Du Bois hits another emotional nerve when referring to Georgia’s soil. Calling the clay “crimson soil” references to both the trademark Georgian red clay and the excessive blood split from the Civil War, the war that ultimately freed African Americans from bondage. This realization causes a somber, saddening tone to hang in the air like morning fog on moist, dewy grass. The tone feels heavy on the audience. And while distressing, opening the fresh wounds from the Civil War opens up the conversation involving unresolved racial issues that influence the same discrimination laws Du Bois and other African Americans suffer under. To further push the emotional envelope, Du Bois includes both his experiences fighting discrimination and the stories of others experiencing injustice. One such story comes from a poor man Du Bois named "the ragged misfortune". The old man states he "worked for [his employer] thirty-seven days this spring...[but] he paid me in cardboard checks" (Du Bois 161). These checks would never see a bank's stone steps or swinging doors. By provoking his audience, Du Bois channels that passion and leads the audience to a solution: The Civil Rights Movement, a movement that possesses the ability to prevent such discrimination to occur. Du Bois changes his strategy again, now focusing on himself and his experiences. For example, his knowledge of