The "two souls" of Barack Obama

In the present paper, the author argues that President Barack Obama's (1995/2008, 2006/2008) life story repeatedly has affirmed the "two souls" (i.e., the African/interdependent and American/independent selves) that W. E. B. Du Bois described in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Despite...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Western journal of black studies 2010-09, Vol.34 (3), p.316-324
Main Author: Gaines, Stanley O., Jr
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Analysis
Beliefs
Black identity
Black studies
Blacks
Civil rights movements
Conflict
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt
Obama, Barack
Presidents
Race identity
Resistance (Psychology)
Social identity
Speeches
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Summary:In the present paper, the author argues that President Barack Obama's (1995/2008, 2006/2008) life story repeatedly has affirmed the "two souls" (i.e., the African/interdependent and American/independent selves) that W. E. B. Du Bois described in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Despite critiques to the contrary (e.g., Asukile, 2008; Ball, 2008; Miah, 2009; A. Reed, 2009), the author concludes that Obama's African/interdependent self is as well-developed as is Obama's American/independent self Overall, Obama's personal reconciliation of the "two souls" is consistent with Du Bois's (1903) belief that each African American must resolve the potential conflict between the African/interdependent and American/independent selves for himself or herself
ISSN:0197-4327