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. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural
organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary
heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's
best and most significant writing. The Library of America series
includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that
average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings,
and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that
will last for centuries.
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