DuBois was unparalleled. From The Souls of Black Folk, on his concept of Double Consciousness:
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 two-ness,—an American, a Negro; 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 American Negro is 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 does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn't bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.
This description is illuminating for a lot of people, and I definitely know changed the way I thought about my gender and sexuality as a result, as well. It profoundly affected me, both in how as someone struggling to be queer against a homophobic culture I found it very relatable, and as someone who is white how eye-opening it was to how little I had considered non-white experiences on anything up to that point.
