“two-ness”—the experience of operating in one America that’s white and one America that’s black. W. E. B. Du Bois, the famous sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist, coined the term double-consciousness to describe this experience of two-ness. In his seminal book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois described double-consciousness as the psychological challenge of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes” of a white society.5
