The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

Although Belle’s narrow escape from sexual assault takes up little space in Part 5 and does not change the narrative of her life in any essential way, it is notable that Jeffers chooses to include it. Every single major female character in the novel has some experience with sexual assault. Belle would have been raped by Stanley had she not dropped Uncle Root’s name to scare Stanley off; Lydia is molested by Gandee and (later) Tony Crawford; Ailey is molested by Gandee, almost assaulted by Boukie, and (later) raped by one of her boyfriends, Abdul. In the “Song” timeline, sexual assault of women is a constant refrain.

The ubiquity of women enduring sexual assault throughout the novel highlights that the 20th century is not so dramatically different from the 19th. While rape of slaves was completely legal during slavery, and women in Ailey’s time at least do not have to fight that level of institutional acceptance, they do have to combat the entitlement that the men around them feel to their bodies. Many of these men and boys seem to feel that they are not doing anything particularly wrong if they force a woman who has agreed to date them into sex. The minimal narrative space devoted to these assaults hints at their pervasiveness; the novel does not always dwell upon them at great length because the women regard these events as a regular, inevitable part of life.

Part 5 also offers less tragic episodes, including the inner-workings of a Black community in the 60s that becomes invested in the concept of pan-Africanism. Led by such artists and philosophers as C.L.R. James, Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire, and even Du Bois himself, this movement encouraged Black people to embrace solidarity with the African diaspora around the world. It also encouraged a renewed interest in and expression of African cultural traditions. While this subculture takes off in “the City” where Belle and Geoff live, Belle’s rural relatives in Chicasetta know next to nothing about it and express no interest in learning.

This subculture, like any, included intragroup disputes as well as intragroup benefits. For instance, when Belle finds out Geoff is cheating on her with Evelyn, she cannot convince Evelyn to stop seeing Geoff because Evelyn embraces a more radical pan-Africanism—a pan-Africanism that questions Western systems like capitalism and the legal institutions, like marriage, that arguably uphold those systems. Nevertheless, Belle is able to leverage her membership in the group to shame Geoff. By confronting him in front of the Wednesday meeting crowd, she calls on not only Geoff’s sense of duty to her but his desire to have a good reputation in the group. While this pan-Africanist community does not remain an important part of Belle and Geoff’s life forever, their friendship with Zulu Harris lasts through decades and proves important later in the novel.