In The Souls of Black Folk W.E.B. DuBois introduces the concept of "Double Consciousness."

After the Egyptian and the Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with a second-sight in this American world--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring …

…of the white race, Negroes receive sympathy and pity but not much else. The emancipation brought with it little progress, many problems, and broken promises. The black soul suffers conflicting differences with its American counter part and nothing that DuBois can do will be able to change the way America reacts to the color before them. The two sides fail to see each other, even less than they did before the emancipation of the slaves.