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The souls of Black folk

One of the most influential books ever published in America, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk is an eloquent collection of fourteen essays that describe the life, the ambitions, the struggles, and the passions of African Americans at the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth c...

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Main Author: Du Bois, W. E. B. 1868-1963.
Other Authors: Griffin, Farah Jasmine.
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : Barnes & Noble Classics, [2003]
Subjects:
African Americans.
Essays.
Summary: One of the most influential books ever published in America, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk is an eloquent collection of fourteen essays that describe the life, the ambitions, the struggles, and the passions of African Americans at the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. The first African American to receive a Ph. D. from Harvard University, Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation's history from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. In The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, Du Bois argued against the conciliatory position taken by Booker T. Washington, at the time the most influential black leader in America, and called for a more radical form of aggressive protest--a strategy that would anticipate and inspire much of the activism of the 1960s. Du Bois's essays were the first to articulate many of Black America's thoughts and feelings, including the dilemma posed by the black psyche's "double consciousness," which Du Bois described as "this twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings ... in one dark body." Every essay in The Souls of Black Folk is a jewel of intellectual prowess, eloquent language, and groundbreaking insight. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the struggle for Civil Rights in America. --Publisher.
Item Description: Originally published: Chicago : A.C. McClurg & Co., 1903.
Physical Description: xxviii, 212 pages : music ; 21 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-212).
ISBN: 159308014X
9781593080143
Author Notes: Civil rights leader and author, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868. He earned a B.A. from both Harvard and Fisk universities, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard, and studied at the University of Berlin. He taught briefly at Wilberforce University before he came professor of history and economics at Atlanta University in Ohio (1896-1910). There, he wrote The Souls of Black Folk (1903), in which he pointed out that it was up to whites and blacks jointly to solve the problems created by the denial of civil rights to blacks. In 1905, Du Bois became a major figure in the Niagara Movement, a crusading effort to end discrimination. The organization collapsed, but it prepared the way for the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in which Du Bois played a major role. In 1910, he became editor of the NAACP magazine, a position he held for more than 20 years.

Du Bois returned to Atlanta University in 1932 and tried to implement a plan to make the Negro Land Grant Colleges centers of black power. Atlanta approved of his idea, but later retracted its support. When Du Bois tried to return to NAACP, it rejected him too.

Active in several Pan-African Congresses, Du Bois came to know Fwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, and Jono Kenyatta the president of Kenya. In 1961, the same year Du Bois joined the Communist party, Nkrumah invited him to Ghana as a director of an Encyclopedia Africana project. He died there on August 27, 1963, after becoming a citizen of that country.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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