The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches

by W. E. B. Du Bois, Shawn Leigh Alexander (Introduction)

Overview

In honor of the 150th anniversary of W.E. B. Du Bois's birth in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the University of Massachusetts Library has prepared a new edition of Du Bois's classic, The Souls of Black Folk. Originally published in 1903, Souls introduced a number of now-canonical terms into the American conversation about race, among them double-consciousness, and it sounded the ominous warning that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." In a new introduction, Shawn Leigh Alexander outlines the historical context of this critical work and provides rare documents from the special collections archive at the Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Unlike Du Bois's more scholarly work, Souls blends narrative and autobiographical essays, and it continues to reach a wide domestic and international readership. This moving homage to black life and culture and its sharp economic and historical critique are more important than ever, resonating with today's unequivocal demand that Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613766064
Publisher:	University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date:	06/29/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was a scholar, writer, and civil rights activist of international significance and renown. The first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard University, he was also a cofounder of the NAACP. A prolific writer and tireless advocate, he authored many works of scholarship, helped to shape the field of sociology, and wrote the early and prophetic history, Black Reconstruction in America. He also wrote novels, poems, and plays. Shawn Leigh Alexander is director of the Langston Hughes Center and associate professor of African and African American studies at the University of Kansas. He earned a PhD from the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he is the author of An Army of Lions: The Struggle for Civil Rights Before the NAACP and a brief biography of Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois: An American Intellectual and Activist.

Table of Contents

Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Introduction The Souls of Black Folk Dedication The Forethought Herein is Written I. Of our Spiritual Strivings II. Of the Dawn of Freedom III. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others IV. Of the Meaning of Progress V. Of the Wings of Atalanta VI. Of the Training of Black Men VII. Of the Black Belt VIII. Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece IX. Of the Sons of Master and Man X. Of the Faith of the Fathers XI. Of the Passing of the First-Born XII. Of Alexander Crummell XIII. Of the Coming of John XIV. The Sorrow Songs The After-Thought J. Douglas Wetmore to Du Bois, October 20, 1903 Du Bois’s critique of Souls, 1904 Annah May Soule to Du Bois, February 26, 1904 D. Tabak to Du Bois, ca. 1905 Hallie E. Queen to Du Bois, February 11, 1907 Du Bois to A. J. McMaster, March 27, 1907 W. D. Hooper to Du Bois, September 2, 1909 Du Bois to W. D. Hooper, October 11, 1909 Yasuichi Hikida to Du Bois, October 15, 1936 J. Saunders Redding’s review of Souls, 1954 Langston Hughes to Du Bois, May 22, 1956 Back Cover

Editorial Reviews

The Souls of Black Folk throws much light upon the complexities of the negro problem, for it shows that the key note of at least some negro aspiration is still the abolition fo the social color line. -- New York Times review, April 1903; Books of the Century

New York Times Book Review

Herein lie buried many things, which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century.

Born in Massachusetts in 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time—and mind you, his time stretched all the way from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A man of staggering intellect and drive, he was the first black to hold a doctorate from Harvard University. Du Bois wrote three historical works, two novels, two autobiographies, and sixteen pioneering books on sociology, history, politics, and race relations. He was a founder of the NAACP, pioneering Pan-Africanist, spirited advocate for world peace, and tireless fighter for civil rights during the darkest days of Jim Crow.

Du Bois was also a prophet: At the turn of the century, he wrote in the "forethought" of this seminal collection of essays that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." That statement has resonated throughout this turbulent century and remains just as fresh today as in 1903. The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of fourteen powerfully written essays that are by turn testimony and autobiography, stands as a monumental achievement and quite possibly his most influential work. The book is both a vivid portrait of the conditions facing freshly emancipated black folk at the turn of the century and a still-relevant discussion of the dilemma of race in the United States. It was here that Du Bois introduced his influential concept of "double-consciousness": the struggle of black people trying to define themselves as both black and American.

What makes these unflinching, luminous, and troublesome essays so powerful is that each builds upon the other to try to answer questions about race that have perplexed, enraged, and divided America for over a century. Written in part to counter Booker T. Washington's prevailing strategy of accommodation, The Souls of Black Folk created a fresh way of looking at and protesting the multifaceted oppression of black people.

Sacred Fire

Du Bois's 1903 classic is one of many large-print standards being released by Transaction. Other new titles in the series include Sir Walter Scott's Rob Roy (ISBN 1-56000-523-8), Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (ISBN 1-56000-517-3), H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau (ISBN 1-56000-515-7), Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (ISBN 1-56000-507-8), E.M. Forster's A Passage to India (ISBN 1-56000-507-6), and Scott Fitzgerald's The Ice Palace and Other Stories (ISBN 1-56000-511-4). These are available in a mixture of paperback and hardcovers, with prices ranging from $17.95 to $24.95.

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