“The Comet”
“The Comet” is a science fiction story in which black low-level bank worker Jim Davis is given the job of descending to a vault deep beneath the city to retrieve some documents and subsequently finds himself accidentally locked inside. When he is last able to free himself, he returns to a city absent all human life but for affluent white woman who was protected from the apocalypse by being in a darkroom at the same time as Jim. The devastation of the population was cased by the gases emanating from the tail of a comet when Earth passed through its orbit. Just when the last vestiges of racial differences is about to succumb to the natural earth to procreate, the woman’s father accompanied by a mostly white male search party interrupts. The woman leaves Jim behind to join her class.
“I won’t Vote”
Written in advice of he 1956 presidential election, this essay outlines the reason behind DuBois’ commitment to refrain from exercising his vote. The fundamental premise is that no particular significant difference exists between either political parties. The Democratic opponent is presented as bearing no starkly drawn divergence from the GOP incumbent. DuBois suggests that Stevenson does not offer enough of a compelling argument on issues related to taxes, welfare, war spending, civil rights and a host of others to make voting for him substantially better than voting for Eisenhower. The alternative of voting for neither is, in fact, the most attractive one.
“My Personal Belief in Immortality”
At 118 words, this short writing of DuBois is less an essay than a written statement. Or perhaps a creed. Whatever it may be termed, it is the literary equivalent of throwing up your arms in the universally recognized gesture, “You got me.” His belief is basically that there is no evidence to back faith in either side of the question. Nobody knows for sure.
“Mixed Blood Aided White Geniuses”
This is a short lecture address given by DuBois which was printed in the New York Times. Essentially, it answer the question most often asked of negroes: what is it that they want? The answer is simple yet complex. Sympathy in the form of true understanding of the plight of racial prejudice which attempts to smooth the road toward further progress. It is a call for understanding and education as well as recognition some very famous names in history—Alexander Hamilton and Alexander Dumas, among others—all have mixed racial heritage and are all considered geniuses.
“Marx and the Negro Problem”
An essay that commences with an analysis of Marxian theories and dialectics before then applying it specifically to the black population of worker. While recognizing the owner class of capitalism exploits black workers, DuBois reserves his toughest criticism for the white members of the working class, suggesting that the injury of bourgeois imposition of economic inequality is compounded by the insult of the white proletariat working hard to deny their fellow black workers of education, the right to vote, union representation, decent housing conditions and other rights they freely enjoy.
“Woman Suffrage”
This short piece by DuBois is a response essay. DuBois is openly countering in print the contents of an article written by Dean Kelly Miller against the idea of women being allowed to vote. One by one, DuBois refutes Miller’s key points of contention: raising children makes it too difficult for women to take any substantive role in political affairs, women are fundamentally weaker than men, and men are protecting women with their exclusivity to voting.
