Few books make history and fewer still become foundational texts for the struggles of an entire people. The Souls of Black Folk occupies this rare position.
It anticipated many of the central questions of the twentieth century and makes the reader aware that current racial tensions have their roots in the failed effort to bring equality and justice to African Americans after the Civil War.
It is the passionate and eloquent story of one man: W. E. B. Du Bois.
Born William Edward Burghardt, Du Bois' world was strictly divided by the color line in America. He called that experience the veil--and allowed his readers to walk within it, to see how racial prejudice impacts us all.
It helped to create the intellectual argument for the black freedom struggle in the twentieth century.
By defining a global color line, Du Bois anticipated pan-Africanism and colonial revolutions in the Third World. Moreover, this stunning critique of how 'race' is lived through all aspects of daily life is central to what would become known as 'whiteness studies' a century later.
W. E. B. DU BOIS (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and graduating from Harvard University, he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. In 1909, Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
