
In 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced 'doo-boyz') was born in Massachusetts. He attended Fisk College in Nashville, then earned his BA in 1890 and his MS in 1891 from Harvard. Du Bois studied at the University of Berlin, then earned his doctorate in history from Harvard in 1894. He taught economics and history at Atlanta University from 1897-1910. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) made his name, in which he urged black Americans to stand up for their educational and economic rights. Du Bois was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and edited the NAACP's official journal, "Crisis," from 1910 to 1934. Du Bois turned "Crisis" into the foremost black literary journal. The black nationalist expanded his interests to global concerns, and is called the "father of Pan-Africanism" for organizing international black congresses. Although he used some religious metaphor and expressions in some of his books and writings, Du Bois called himself a freethinker. In "On Christianity," a posthumously published essay, Du Bois critiqued the black church: "The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer." Du Bois became a member of the Communist Party and officially repudiated his U.S. citizenship at the end of his life, dying in his adopted country of Ghana. D. 1963. More: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t... http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stori... http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0his... http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dub...
This landmark book is a founding work in the literature of black protest. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) played a key role in developing the strategy and program that dominated early 20th-century black protest in America. In this collection of essays, first published together in 1903, he eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy advanced by Booker T. Washington, then the most influential black leader in America, would only serve to perpetuate black oppression.Publication of The Souls of Black Folk was a dramatic event that helped to polarize black leaders into two groups: the more conservative followers of Washington and the more radical supporters of aggressive protest. Its influence cannot be overstated. It is essential reading for everyone interested in African-American history and the struggle for civil rights in America.
The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time.
The distinguished American civil rights leader, W. E. B. Du Bois first published these fiery essays, sketches, and poems individually nearly 80 years ago in the Atlantic, the Journal of Race Development, and other periodicals. Reflecting the author's ideas as a politician, historian, and artist, this volume has long moved and inspired readers with its militant cry for social, political, and economic reforms for black Americans. Essential reading for students of African-American history
In a vaguely futuristic yet oddly contemporary world, a passing comet casts a shadow of death over Manhattan. Only two survive: a black man whose world has been one of poverty and hard work, and a white woman who knows only leisure and privilege. If humanity is to have a future, the two must build a new world from the wreckage of the old.
A moving cultural biography of abolitionist martyr John Brown, by one of the most important African-American intellectuals of the twentieth century.In the history of slavery and its legacy, John Brown looms large as a hero whose deeds partly precipitated the Civil War. As Frederick Douglass wrote: "When John Brown stretched forth his arm ... the clash of arms was at hand." DuBois's biography brings Brown stirringly to life and is a neglected classic.
Originally published in 1911, The Quest of the Silver Fleece was the first novel to come from world-famous sociologist and civil-rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois. A controversial title of its time, the novel chronicles the complex interactions between Northern financing and Southern politics as it follows the story of free-spirited Zora, child of a Southern swamp, and her romance with Yankee-educated Bles, who will eventually face the opportunity to claim political power through corrupt means. In the middle of it all is the silver fleece, a crop of cotton rich with meaning and symbolism.In the tradition of other incendiary novels that explore market forces at the turn of the century, such as Frank Norris’s The Pit and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle , The Quest of the Silver Fleece was seen as an “economic study” by Du Bois, yet it was also a romantic and otherwordly saga, loosely based on the Greek myth from which it takes its name. Using literary conventions to expose and oppose America’s views on race, Du Bois presents a sprawling and provocative work that continues to engage readers and inspire debate among literary scholars today.
In 1897 the promising young sociologist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was given a temporary post as Assistant in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania in order to conduct a systematic investigation of social conditions in the seventh ward of Philadelphia. The product of those studies was the first great empirical book on the Negro in American society.More than one hundred years after its original publication by the University of Pennsylvania Press, The Philadelphia Negro remains a classic work. It is the first, and perhaps still the finest, example of engaged sociological scholarship--the kind of work that, in contemplating social reality, helps to change it.In his introduction, Elijah Anderson examines how the neighborhood studied by Du Bois has changed over the years and compares the status of blacks today with their status when the book was initially published.
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.4 ⭐
Historian, sociologist, novelist, editor, and political activist, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was the most gifted and influential black intellectual of his time. This Library of America volume presents his essential writings, covering the full span of a restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice.The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (1896), his first book, renders a dispassionate account of how, despite ethical and political opposition, Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until a bloody civil war taught them the disastrous consequences of moral cowardice.The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of beautifully written essays, narrates the cruelties of racism and celebrates the strength and pride of black America. By turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical, Du Bois pays tribute to black music and religion, explores the remarkable history of the Reconstruction Freedman’s Bureau, assesses the career of Booker T. Washington, and remembers the death of his infant son.Dusk of Dawn (1940) was described by Du Bois as an attempt to elucidate the “race problem” in terms of his own experience. It describes his boyhood in western Massachusetts, his years at Fisk and Harvard universities, his study and travel abroad, his role in founding the NAACP and his long association with it, and his emerging Pan-African consciousness. He called this autobiography his response to an “environing world” that “guided, embittered, illuminated and enshrouded my life.”Du Bois’s influential essays and speeches span the period from 1890 to 1958. They record his evolving positions on the issues that dominated his long, active life: education in a segregated society; black history, art, literature, and culture; the controversial career of Marcus Garvey; the fate of black soldiers in the First World War; the appeal of communism to frustrated black Americans; his trial and acquittal during the McCarthy era; and the elusive promise of an African homeland.The editorials and articles from The Crisis (1910–1934) belong to the period of Du Bois’s greatest influence. During his editorship of the NAACP magazine that he founded, Du Bois wrote pieces on virtually every aspect of American political, cultural, and economic life. Witty and sardonic, angry and satiric, proud and mournful, these writings show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant.
"The time has not yet come for a complete history of the Negro peoples. Archeological research in Africa has just begun, and many sources of information in Arabian, Portuguese, and other tongues are not fully at our command; and, too, it must frankly be confessed, racial prejudice against darker peoples is still too strong in so-called civilized centers for judicial appraisement of the peoples of Africa. Much intensive monographic work in history and science is needed to clear mooted points and quiet the controversialist who mistakes present personal desire for scientific proof. Nevertheless, I have not been able to withstand the temptation to essay such short general statement of the main known facts and their fair interpretation as shall enable the general reader to know as men a sixth or more of the human race. Manifestly so short a story must be mainly conclusions and generalizations with but meager indication of authorities and underlying arguments. Possibly, if the Public will, a later and larger book may be more satisfactory on these points." -- W.E.B. Du Bois Complete with maps and reading guilde.] Original publication date: 1915.
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.2 ⭐
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) is the greatest of African American intellectuals--a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation's history from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, Du Bois penned his epochal masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, in 1903. It remains his most studied and popular work; its insights into life at the turn of the 20th century still ring true.This is the 2018 updated Penguin Classics edition with a new introduction by Ibram Kendi and the essays The Talented Tenth and The Souls of White Folk included. The ISBN has been moved from the older Penguin Classics edition.
Although the Civil War marked an end to slavery in the United States, it would take another fifty years to establish the country's civil rights movement. Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois was among the first generation of African-American scholars to spearhead this movement towards equality. As cofounder of the NAACP, he sought to initiate equality through social change, and as a talented writer, he created books and essays that provide a revealing glimpse into the black experience of the times. In The Gift of Black Folk-one of Du Bois' most important works-he recounts the remarkable history of African-Americans and their many unsung contributions to American society.
In her perceptive introduction to this edition, Irene Diggs sets this classic autobiography against its broad historical context and critically analyzes its theoretical and methodological significance.
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.3 ⭐
The African American educator and social activist looks back on his life and work
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.3 ⭐
The American educator and writer reviews the tragic impact of Europe on Africans and the rise of Pan-African socialism
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.3 ⭐
Comprehensive, well-documented 1896 classic draws upon a wealth of primary source materials to examine the South's plantation economy and its influence on the slave trade, the role of Northern merchants in financing the slave trade during the 19th century, and much else.
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools-intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it-this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life. If this be true-and who can deny it-three tasks lay before me; first to show from the past that the Talented Tenth as they have risen among American Negroes have been worthy of leadership; secondly, to show how these men may be educated and developed; and thirdly, to show their relation to the Negro problem.
Undoubtedly the most influential black intellectual of the twentieth century and one of America's finest historians, W.E.B. DuBois knew that the liberation of the African American people required liberal education and not vocational training. He saw education as a process of teaching certain timeless moderation, an avoidance of luxury, a concern for courtesy, a capacity to endure, a nurturing love for beauty. At the same time, DuBois saw education as fundamentally subversive. This was as much a function of the well-established role of educationfrom Plato forwardas the realities of the social order under which he lived. He insistently calls for great energy and initiative; for African Americans controlling their own lives and for continued experimentation and innovation, while keeping education's fundamentally radical nature in view.Though containing speeches written nearly one-hundred years ago, and on a subject that has seen more stormy debate and demagoguery than almost any other in recent history, The Education of Black People approaches education with a timelessness and timeliness, at once rooted in classical thought that reflects a remarkably fresh and contemporary relevance.
The essential writings of Du Bois have been selected and edited by David Levering Lewis, his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains five books and six essays by author, historian, and civil rights activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. Du Bois was the first African-American to receive a PhD from Harvard and spent most of his long life seeking solutions to endemic racism. The works of this collection all deal with Du Bois' efforts to understand and combat racism.This ebook is DRM free and includes an active table of contents.ContentsThe Souls of Black FolkThe NegroThe Suppression of the African Slave Trade the United States of America, 1838-1870DarkwaterThe Quest of the Silver Fleece, A NovelEssaysA Negro Schoolmaster in the New SouthOf the Training of Black MenStrivings of the Negro PeopleThe Conservation of RacesThe Freedmen’s BureauThe Talented Tenth
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” These were the prescient words of W. E. B. Du Bois’s influential 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk . The preeminent Black intellectual of his generation, Du Bois wrote about the trauma of seeing the Reconstruction era’s promise of racial equality cruelly dashed by the rise of white supremacist terror and Jim Crow laws. Yet he also argued for the value of African American cultural traditions and provided inspiration for countless civil rights leaders who followed him. Now artist Paul Peart-Smith offers the first graphic adaptation of Du Bois’s seminal work. Peart-Smith’s graphic adaptation provides historical and cultural contexts that bring to life the world behind Du Bois’s words. Readers will get a deeper understanding of the cultural debates The Souls of Black Folk engaged in, with more background on figures like Booker T. Washington, the advocate of black economic uplift, and the Pan-Africanist minister Alexander Crummell. This beautifully illustrated book vividly conveys the continuing legacy of The Souls of Black Folk , effectively updating it for the era of the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter.
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.5 ⭐
Souls of Black Folk & Southern Horrors and Other Writings & Up from Slavery (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)
It is the aim of this essay to study the period of history from 1861 to 1872 so far as it relates to the American Negro In effect this tale of the dawn of Freedom is an account of that government of men called the Freedmen's Bureau. - one of the most singular and interesting of the attempts made by a great nation to grapple with vast problems of race and social condition.Throughout history. some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate. dissent. war and revolution. They have enlightened. outraged. provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin ings you the works of the great thinkers. pioneers. radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features a table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the eReaders, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the eReaders, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.
Historian, journalist, educator, and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du Bois was perhaps most accomplished as a sociologist of race relations and of the black community in the United States. This volume collects his most important sociological writings from 1898 to 1910. The eighteen selections include five on Du Bois's conception of sociology and sociological research, especially as a tool in the struggle for racial justice; excerpts from studies of black communities in the South and the North, including The Philadelphia Negro; writings on black culture and social life, with a selection from The Negro American Family; and later works on race relations in the United States and elsewhere after World War II. This section includes a powerful fiftieth-anniversary reassessment of his classic 1901 article in the Atlantic in which he predicted that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."The editors provide an annotated bibliography, a lengthy overview of Du Bois's life and work, and detailed introductions to the selections."The most significant contribution of this book is its inclusive look at Du Bois as both academic and activist. . . . Individuals interested in the study of social issues and political sociology would benefit from reading and discussing this book."—Paul Kriese, Reviews of New Books"Green and Driver, informing this volume with a 48-page essay that summarizes Du Bois' career and places him in the context of the profession, have intelligently organized his writings. . . . A welcome contribution that should have wide use."—Elliott Rudwick, Contemporary Sociology
by W.E.B. Du Bois
Rating: 4.6 ⭐
B&R Samizdat Express edition with active table of contents, linking to every chapter and every poemThis file includes: "Up From Slavery" by Booker T. Washington, "The Souls of Black Folk" by W.E.B. DuBois, "The Conjure Woman" by Charles Chesnutt, "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man" by James Weldon Johnson, "Clotel or The President's Daugher" by William Wells Brown, "The Compelte Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar", "De Turkey and De Law" by Zora Hurston, "A Century of Negro Migration" by Carter Woodson, "A Negro Exporer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson, and "The Underground Rail Road" by Will Still.
1936 reist der afroamerikanische Soziologe W. E. B. Du Bois zu einem mehrmonatigen Forschungsaufenthalt ins nationalsozialistische Deutschland. Als scharfer Kritiker des Rassismus in seinem eigenen Land beobachtet er den Antisemitismus und die Entrechtung der Juden im "Dritten Reich". Seine wöchentlichen Reportagen aus diesen Monaten erscheinen hier zum ersten Mal in deutscher Sprache. Du Bois berichtet über die Wagner-Festspiele in Bayreuth und das Deutsche Museum in München, über deutsche Bierlokale und die Olympischen Spiele in Berlin, bei denen auch schwarze Sportler antreten. Mit der Vertrautheit des Deutschlandkenners und dem fremden Blick des schwarzen Amerikaners betrachtet er die totalitäre Diktatur. Du Bois beobachtet entlang der "Farbenlinie", "along the color line", und stellt überrascht fest, dass er persönlich kaum Diskriminierung erfährt. Umso mehr erschüttert ihn die Verfolgung der Juden: «Sie übertrifft an rachsüchtiger Grausamkeit und öffentlicher Herabwürdigung alles, was ich je erlebt habe», fasst er seine Eindrücke zusammen, «und ich habe einiges erlebt».
A collection of prayers written by Du Bois for students at Atlanta University, thoughtfully compiled and introduced by Herbert Aptheker. These prayers are deeply commited to paying attention to and caring for the inner lives of black Americans. Biblical familiarity and agnosticity are both present in these autobiographical writings, uplifting the hopes and practices of W. E. B. Du Bois's life, while meditating on the still relevant question of how to make "a good life for all".