LIFE BEGINS AFTER SIXTY-FIVE

Description

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness—an American, an African American; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the African American in the history of this strife—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his African blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that African American blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both an African American and an American citizen, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellow white Americans, and not have the doors of opportunity slammed in his face.