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The Conservation of Races by W. E. B. DuBois

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This revealing biography captures the full life of W.E.B. Du Bois—historian, sociologist, author, editor—a leader in the fight to bring African Americans more fully into the American landscape as well as forceful proponent of them leaving America altogether and returning to Africa.

Drawing on extensive research, Gerald Horne, a leading authority on Du Bois and a versatile and prolific scholar in his own right, offers a fully rounded portrait of this accomplished and controversial figure, including the often overlooked final decades without which no portrait of Du Bois could be complete. The book also highlights Du Bois's relationships with and influence upon other leading civil rights activists both during, and subsequent to, his extraordinarily long life, including Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglas, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Jesse Jackson.

Product Description
The beginning of the twentieth century was a criticaltime in African American history.Segregation and discrimination wereon the rise.Two seminal African American figures began to debate onways to combat racial problems.Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois developed different strategies for racial uplift as they activelycompeted for support of the black community.

In the process, they made a permanent mark on the debate over howblacks should achieve equality in America.Although other booksaddress the Washington-Du Bois conflict, this book provides a detailedoverview of the issues in a brief yet thorough narrative. JacquelineMoore examines the motivations of Washington and Du Bois and thepolitical issues surrounding their positions. Moore contextualizes thedebate in the broader terms of radical versus accommodationiststrategies of racial uplift.

This book traces the argument between these two men, which began in1903 when Du Bois published The Souls of Black Folk, an attack onWashington, his association with Tuskegee Institute’s industrialeducation program, and accommodationism.

Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand these two great men and their politics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Reads like the kind of book you WISHED your history books read!
Ok, so I'm on page 64, chapter 4, titled The Conflict.I've been introduced to these men being guided from childhood up to, apparently, The Conflict (chapter 4).So far I've been able to more thoroughly understand who BTW is through his eyes, as well as WEBD, and it's painfully obvious that they really could only see what it was that they saw on a daily basis in their childhood.WEBD did slightly see black life through a different eye while at Fisk, but I imagine it was more of a 'I am a little better than you' attitude which probably didn't go over well with rural southern blacks. BTW saw dire poverty day in and day out, being born a slave in VA; WEBD grew up free in MA, lived in an integrated town and went to integrated schools and only briefly met racism face-to-face.It's truly no wonder these two men saw two valid yet completely different outlooks.BTW advocated the learning of a trade, carpentry for example, to put blacks in the seat of economic equality putting blacks in a secure position for equality.WEBD felt susceptible to the prejudiced and racist mentalities encouraged upon blacks in higher learning and in life period , especially while in the south and Philadelphia.As I'm reading this, I'm beginning to see that this same ideas on education exists today amongst college youth and beyond, with the basic idea of practicality vs. stimulation.Everyone wants to be able to support themselves and their families with a secure job, but at the same time, you want your mind to be stimulated and trabajar in a creative and nourishing environment focusing on your talents and strengths.

I can't imagine what it would be like to live in the turn of the 20th century, I can only read and try to picture it in my mind.Due to timing, I was not there, therefore, I cannot say, they should have done x instead of y and blue instead of reen.Fortunately for me, reading J. Moore's novel-like continuum of history and facts I have a hard time putting it down.I understand both sides of the spectrum, in hindsight, it would have made that time period much more continuous, if they were able to come to some kind of agreement and compromise on issues during a time when so many were hoping for a better life.Leaders are good, but sometimes they can be even more distracting to the actual problem at hand.If there is no compromise, there seems to be confusion and misplaced hatred and it's no good for anybody and certainly not the cause if no one can agree.This is why I really like this book, it has me thinking of other things that aren't necessarily explored here but because I'm reading about it, it has me thinking about other topics tangent to the topics discussed here.And that, is my FAVORITE kind of book! keq

A "reader friendly" analytical survey and presentation
Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, And The Struggle For Racial Uplift by Jacqueline M. Moore (Associate Professor of History at Austin College, Sherman, Texas) is an informed and informative depiction of two remarkable and quiet different men who helped shape Black American history. Placing each man's work in historical context, and studying the debate conflict of ideas that both had and alternatives to either one's point of view, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, And The Struggle For Racial Uplift is an intelligently written, scholarly, evenhanded, and "reader friendly" analytical survey and presentation which is strongly recommended for students of Black Studies, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in the contributions of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois to American society and culture. ... Read more

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Product Description
The Negro is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Unknown Dubois
W.E.B Dubois is most famous for being one of the founders of the N.A.A.C.P and for his critique of Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise speech in his now famous The Souls of Black Folk which is required reading at most Black Studies Departments at universities throughout the United States in fact a typical United States History program may have you read it as well;however, DuBois book the Negro for which this review is about seems to be less popular and I find that many people have not read it and the historians who mention it rarely talk about it in detail, essentially the book gives a history of African people in Africa,America,and the Caribbean and talks about their accomplishments and struggles from ancient(5000B.C) to modern times(1915). After reading this book I now know why many programs rarely use this book I can't help but believe it is because the book is very Afrocentric in its structure.....I was shocked to find out that when it came to the history of ancient Africa Dubois has more in common with the afrocentrist Molefi Asante than many may realize and less in common with the more popular scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.(regardless of whether he is a part of the W.E.B Dubois Department at Harvard) I saw Henry Louis Gates PBS documentary Wonders of the African World maybe about five years ago and I remember how skeptical he was about connecting Ancient Egypt to the rest of sub-saharan Africa......DuBois is not shy at all when he states that Egypt is indeed a part of Africa and that the people who founded Egypt were Negro(this was the word used at the time the book was written)Dubois was more radical than people realize he was one of the founders of Pan-African Congress I believe there were five in all, he would eventually leave the N.A.A.C.P abandon the idea of integration, become a socialist(The F.B.I had a file on him), move back to Africa and die in Ghana.....in fact Dubois would have more in common with his enemy Marcus Garvey(Dubois in his early career would criticize Garvey for his back to Africa movement)than he would realize. Its a great read for anyone interested in this African-American intellectual giant it may change your perspective on the man you think you know, but it should make you find him even more interesting. I will warn you that the book is dated it was written in 1915 so some of his theories are proven wrong, one example would be that Dubois at the time thought that man originated in the Middle East, thanks to the archaeological and DNA record we now know that man originated in Africa, but enjoy this book and may it increase our understanding of this great man

Good to have in print easy to read.
I am pleased that this book is available in a print that I can easily read.

A must read, even if you have to read it again and again
This book took me on a deep journey.Granted it may take most more than giving it a once over, but if you spend the time and effort to really get to know the book, and research exactly what the author is saying it is well worth the time that you took to understand it.A great read, and will challenge even the most agile mind.

From aCollege Sophmore POV
I had to read this book for my African Diasopra class and I had to read most of the lines twice because I didn't understand it. I have read the whole thing at least once and still have little to say of the contents. The afterword, however, was most helpful. It must have some really powerful words in it, but the sentence structure threw me off too much to understand. ... Read more

Product Description
Scholar, author, editor, teacher, reformer and civil rights leader, W.E.B. Du Bois (1888-1963) was a major figure in American life and one of the earliest proponents of equality for black Americans. This is the third volume of three and incorporates correspondence from 1944 to 1963. ... Read more

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The essential writings of Du Bois have been selected and edited by David Levering Lewis, his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
Amazon.com Review
Even as the lunch counters were being liberated in the South,W.E.B. Du Bois predicted the "... deepening class conflictwithin black America and superficial economic improvement at best inthe lot of the great majority of black people." Always an uttererof difficult and unpopular truths, Du Bois's writing still has thering of prophecy come true. "The inflexible truth he embraced wasthat, just as Africans in the United States 'under the corporate ruleof monopolized wealth ... will be confined to the lowest wage group,'so the peoples of the developing world faced subordination in theglobal scheme of things capitalist."

The long span of DuBois's remarkable life (95 years) embodied the essence of AfricanAmerican dilemmas, from the early 1870s and post-Reconstruction to theearly 1960s' civil rights revolution. Honored primarily for hisenormous breakthroughs in black scholarship, urban sociology, andcivil rights, Du Bois also paradoxically "... espoused racial andpolitical beliefs of such variety and seeming contradiction as tobewilder and alienate as many Americans, black and white, as heinspired or converted." Marxism, in his old age, would supersedecivil liberties as his ideological foundation.

The contradictions,the uncompromising brilliance, the allure, still has David L. Lewisasking, "Who is Du Bois, the man?" The more the details ofhis early life are probed, the more evident it becomes that Du Bois's"facts" differ from how he wrote about them. He crafted"a grand prose wherein the 'golden river' flowing near hisbirthplace is in fact the highly polluted Housatonic River; the'mighty [Burghardt] clan' of his mother's people is in reality ahardscrabble band of peasant landholders clinging topostage-stamp-size holdings; the dashing cavalier father, Alfred DuBois, is an army deserter and philanderer; and the 'gentle and decentpoverty' of his childhood is more often sharp and deep." Are suchdiscrepancies significant? In as much, claims Lewis, that theyrepresent Du Bois's cultivation of his outsider vision--a stancearticulated in his 1903 classic, The Soul of Black Folk, whichdescribes the essential and necessary double-consciousness of theAmerican black.

In his concentrated but vastly informativeintroduction, David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographerof W.E.B. Du Bois, posits four career turning points that shaped thishighly charged political life--from the disputes between Du Bois andBooker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey to the New York-NAACP years(1934) and the internal rift caused by Du Bois's fearlessdenunciations to the halls of academe to a run for the U.S. Senate atthe age of 82. His directorship of the Peace Information Center (PIC),which advocated nuclear disarmament, would get him declared a foreignagent. Turning to communism, even as Khrushchev disclosed theStalin-era crimes and Soviet atrocities, he exiled himself to WestAfrica. The timing seemed ironic. The American civil rights revolutionwas just gathering force.

This vast collection of the writings ofW.E.B. Du Bois is organized under 15 headings to reflect thephilosophical shifts and changes in a long and contradictorylife. Each section is introduced by Lewis with commentary on where DuBois stood historically in relation to issues of race and, whereappropriate, elucidating on the issues. Lewis's selections from the DuBois opus arise from a vast and confident knowledge. Students of raceand the civil rights movement in American history will want to addthis remarkable collection of Du Bois's essential writings to theirlibrary. -Hollis Giammatteo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

indescribable
If I liked Du Bois before, I love him after purchasing this collection of essays! I have enjoyed reading through all of them

Reveals The DuBois you Didn't Know
Most Black History fans think they have DuBois figured out. You either hate him for his haughtiness and elitism or you love his militant stands. This collection of DuBois' writings shows that the truth was somewhere in between. We see DuBois change his mind on Marcus Garvey and the elitist "Talented Tenth" idea. We see DuBois evolve from Integrationism to Black Nationalism to Communism. We basically see a man who is not afraid to change his ideas and admit his errors, a very human and complex man. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: BiographyAmazon.com Review
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 Negro life at the turn of the 20th century still ring true.

With a dash of the Victorian and Enlightenment influences that peppered his impassioned yet formal prose, the book's largely autobiographical chapters take the reader through the momentous and moody maze of Afro-American life after the Emancipation Proclamation: from poverty, the neoslavery of the sharecropper, illiteracy, miseducation, and lynching, to the heights of humanity reached by the spiritual "sorrow songs" that birthed gospel and the blues. The most memorable passages are contained in "On Booker T. Washington and Others," where Du Bois criticizes his famous contemporary's rejection of higher education and accommodationist stance toward white racism: "Mr. Washington's programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races," he writes, further complaining that Washington's thinking "withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens." The capstone of The Souls of Black Folk, though, is Du Bois' haunting, eloquent description of the concept of the black psyche's "double consciousness," which he described as "a peculiar sensation.... One ever feels this twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." Thanks to W.E.B. Du Bois' commitment and foresight--and the intellectual excellence expressed in this timeless literary gem--black Americans can today look in the mirror and rejoice in their beautiful black, brown, and beige reflections. --Eugene Holley Jr. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (66)

This edition is a publishing scam.
Please do not buy this edition of The Souls of Black Folk.It is a publishing scam that involves scanning a text in the public domain, and then appropriating reviews, images, and customer feedback of other editions. The scanning process is inaccurate so you will receive an edition that does not have correct paragraph markings and may have missing text. Thumbs down.

Some Comments
Du Bois eloquently expresses the black experience circa 1903. More precisely, Du Bois was a mulatto. There are a lot of environmental explanations of black problems in the book. Du Bois asserts that the black man is not inferior, but is of one of the less developed races. He had confidence that education would lift the black man up and it was the white man's duty to do so. He explains that slavery caused such problems as black promiscuity, crime, weak marriages, lower educational and moral standards, and distrust of the police and the justice system. Even after slavery days have passed, the characteristics of that culture are passed through the generations.

One complaint he had about freeing the slaves was that they were not properly prepared to live as free men. They should have been given 40 acres and a mule and job skill training so that they could move up the economic ladder. Blacks were allowed to slide back down to the serfdom of being sharecroppers. The cotton crop began to yield less bounty and money because the land was worn out from over use and cotton prices fell, leaving the south in poverty, but unwilling to change its ways.

Although Du Bois was raised in the North, he had great sympathy for everyone living in the South and he often expressed its political problems from a socially conservative point of view. He was a gentleman reformer, not a fire-breathing revolutionary. His love of the liberal arts and higher education shines through as he asserts that blacks should be given higher education to learn about the finer things and the meaning of life. He contradicted Booker T. Washington's compromise with the white south's desire to keep blacks in their place. Washington thought that blacks should just learn trades and not worry about having political power, civil rights, and higher education.

Du Bois liked to mix among the common black folk and he gives us some insight into how poor blacks lived at the time. An uneasy peace had settled in the south as resentful whites adjusted to the new status of blacks as partially free and equal, courtesy of the Yankee government.

My favorite essay was Of the Coming of John in which a white John, son of a judge, and a black John, son of a servant, live parallel lives. They both leave town to get a degree. White John goes to Princeton and Black John goes to a lesser known school. The whites in the small southern town decry Black John getting an education, saying that it will ruin him. After all, he is such a nice, obedient boy and will make a good servant as long as he does not get any fool ideas in his head. As Black John loses his simplicity and becomes more disciplined in his studies, he becomes serious, dignified, and less content than when he was a simple, joyful youth. He returns home reluctantly after getting his degree, thinking that he has outgrown the small town he grew up in. He goes North briefly, but he does not feel at home there either. The blacks in the small town think he has become stuck up and whites think that he has become dangerously uppity. The story ends in tragedy, but I thought it was a good story about outgrowing a town and then not being able to fit back into that small box again and not being able to fit in elsewhere either. It's something I can relate to. It shows the attitudes of whites toward black education at the time. In a sense, Black John was ruined, but that, according to Du Bois, was because whites would not support black education, not because he had outgrown the town.

W.E.B. DuBoise, book review
If you are not well-read, or a Harvard graduate, then you might want to think twice before ordering this one. It's the typical work of W.E.B. BuBoise - using uncommon 'advanced terminology' (long fancy words) to present his point. You'll find yourself having to use a dictionary for every other word, and it'll take a month to finish this 150 page paperback, and you'll still find youself saying, "That's it? THAT'S the book that all the fuss has been stirred over?" If you want to read something of the old fashioned 'Reconstruction era' pertaining to black folks, then stick to 'Ways of The White Folks,' or something else by Langston Hughs.

Review of Bedford's DuBois
This volume includes the Souls of Black Folk, and also a few other essays by DuBois. The introduction to the subject matter is almost as inspiring as DuBois himself. One drawback- the text is accompanied by endnotes rather than footnotes, which is rather problematic because Dubois' frequent references to very specific classical literature call for frequent trips to the back of the book.

Understand "double consciousness"
This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 - August 27, 1963) was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. He became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963 at the age of 95. David Levering Lewis, a biographer, wrote, "In the course of his long, turbulent career, W.E.B. Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism--scholarship, propaganda, integration, cultural and economic separatism, politics, international communism, expatriation, third world solidarity. After graduating from Fisk University in 1888, Du Bois took a bachelor's degree cum laude from Harvard College in 1890 (Harvard having refused to recognize the equivalency of his Fisk degree), and in 1892 received a stipend to attend the University of Berlin. While a student in Berlin, he travelled extensively throughout Europe, and came of age intellectually while studying with some of the most prominent social scientists in the German capital, such as Gustav von Schmoller. In 1896, Du Bois became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After teaching at Wilberforce University in Ohio and the University of Pennsylvania, he established the department of sociology at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University).

"The Souls of Black Folk" is the most well-known work of African-American W.E.B. Du Bois, a writer, leader, and civil rights activist. The book, published in 1903, contains several essays on race, some of which had been previously published in Atlantic Monthly magazine. Du Bois drew from his own experiences to develop this groundbreaking work on being African-American in American society. Outside of its notable place in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the first works to deal with sociology. In Living Black History, (p. 96) esteemed scholar and Du Bois biographer Manning Marable makes the following observation about the book: "Few books make history and fewer still become foundational texts for the movements and struggles of an entire people. The Souls of Black Folk occupies this rare position. It helped to create the intellectual argument for the black freedom struggle in the twentieth century. Souls justified the pursuit of higher education for Negroes and thus contributed to the rise of the black middle class. By describing 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 the normal aspects of daily life is central to what would become known as 'whiteness studies' a century later."

For Du Bois the problem of 20th century is problem of color line. Concept of double consciousness is looking thru eyes of others. Notion of authenticity what does it mean to be authentic? His idea is very Freudian. Du Bois says authenticity is a longing for Blacks, but impossible because blacks can't be authentic have to live another way. Cornell West says Du Bois is a pragmatist. He is connected to the Harlem Renaissance. Paul Gilroy says Du Bois is more connected with Pan Africanism experience of displaced Africans around the world. What does he mean "souls of Black folk"? It is a metaphor for spirituality. Book is meant to provide progress for black folks. Freedman's bureau had some success like schools. He had issue with B. T. Washington populist message of wanting blacks to concentrate on jobs not the vote, higher education, or civil rights. Du Bois resents Booker T. Washington as spokesperson for blacks. Critiques American materialism. Standard of human culture and lofty ideals of life, the talented tenth. Book is pioneering for 6 reasons: 1. Identification of hyphenated self. 2. Recognition of Black culture like music, the Blues vernacular culture. The soul of the nation itself, West says musically is key to text, it "sings" the "sorrow song" is motif of life. 3. Important to Harlem renaissance period. 4. Pioneering work of sociology and psychology. 5. Higher education is means to self realization. 6. Relations to economics drives development of black life.

Double consciousness. His double consciousness gives us a vivid picture of how tragic the racist discourse is, defined by skin color. Black or white thus it strengthens arguments that each race had unique properties thus polarizing us. His book gives us this understanding of our mind and self identity. If Blacks accept the racial divide they then deny equality. He does see a black identity and celebrates difference made real in Black experience. Celebrates difference made real in peoples experience and beyond our racial fictions. How does he do this, what is the key? It is music the "sorrows song." Those voicings, these songs speak to slow tragedy. He precedes each chapter with sorrow song. The doubleness of consciousness is extended throughout the work. They convey resistance and defiance. Last chapter how prejudice works on people. Whiteness is non race. The great chain of being, your place in society. Rise of Enlightenment human is now sovereign leads to systematic study of man.

Du Bois was investigated by the FBI, who claimed in May of 1942 that "his writing indicates him to be a socialist," and that he "has been called a Communist and at the same time criticized by the Communist Party." Du Bois visited Communist China during the Great Leap Forward. Also, in the 16 March 1953 issue of The National Guardian, Du Bois wrote "Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature." Du Bois was chairman of the Peace Information Center at the start of the Korean War. He was among the signers of the Stockholm Peace Pledge, which opposed the use of nuclear weapons. In 1950, he ran for the U.S. Senate on the American Labor Party ticket in New York and received 4% of the vote. He was indicted in the United States under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and acquitted for lack of evidence. W.E.B. Du Bois became disillusioned with both black capitalism and racism in the United States. In 1959, Du Bois received the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1961, at the age of 93, he joined the Communist Party USA.

Du Bois was invited to Ghana in 1961 by President Kwame Nkrumah to direct the Encyclopedia Africana, a government production, and a long-held dream of his. When, in 1963, he was refused a new U.S. passport, he and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, became citizens of Ghana, making them dual citizens of Ghana and the United States. Du Bois' health had declined in 1962, and on August 27, 1963, he died in Accra, Ghana at the age of ninety-five, one day before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, or philosophy.
... Read more

Product Description
Historian, sociologist, novelist, editor, and political activist, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was the most gifted and influential black intellectual of his time. Here are his essential writings, spanning a long, restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice. "The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade" recounts how Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until taught by bloody civil war the consequences of moral cowardice; the essays in "The Souls of Black Folk" celebrate the strength and pride of black America, pay tribute to black music and religion, assess the career of Booker T. Washington, remember the death of an infant son; the autobiography "Dusk of Dawn" moves from a Massachusetts boyhood to the founding of the N.A.A.C.P. and emerging Pan-African consciousness. Essays and speeches from 1890 to 1958--angry and satiric, proud and mournful--show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

W.E.B DuBois4for1
Excellent opportunity to get several of DuBois' Works under one cover and at one price. ... Read more

Product Description
This monumental biography--eight years in the research and writing--treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.
Amazon.com Review
A pioneering sociologist, educator, essayist, activist, and political theorist, W.E.B. Du Bois was one of America's great intellectuals. This second volume by David Levering Lewis picks up where his Pulitzer Prize-winning W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race left off, chronicling his life from 1919 until his death in Ghana in 1963, on the eve of the March on Washington. "In the course of his long, turbulent career," Lewis writes, "W.E.B. Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism--scholarship, propaganda, integration, cultural and economic separatism, politics, international communism, expatriation, third world solidarity."

Lewis's lean and lyrical writing rescues Du Bois's stuffy, Afro-Victorian speech from historical documents, breathing life into his letters, memos, and numerous articles, both published and unpublished. He takes us through Du Bois's battles with the NAACP (which he cofounded); his ideological wars with "Back to Africa" nationalist Marcus Garvey; his many Pan-African conferences; and his tours of Africa, Japan, Russia, and China. He probes deeply into many of Du Bois's books, including Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil and Black Reconstruction, adding marvelous new insights into the neglected novel Dark Princess. Lewis also details Du Bois's relationships with friends and foes alike, including James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Alain Locke, as well as his triumphs, such as his acquittal in the infamous trial in which he was accused of being an "unregistered foreign agent," and his defeats, notably his failure to publish his Encyclopedia Africana.

A foremost authority on this great man, Lewis summarizes Du Bois as having "an extraordinary mind of color in a racialized century ... possessed of a principled impatience with what he saw as the egregious failings of American democracy that drove him, decade by decade, to the paradox of defending totalitarianism in the service of a global idea of economic and social justice." A reading of this magnificent work is nothing less than a reading of modern black America. --Eugene Holley Jr. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Does Not Disappoint
David Levering Lewis never disappoints his readers. As with the first half of the Dubois autobiography, this book is well-researched and well-written. I read many biographies and some authors get too bogged down in explaining the subject's motivations, etc. -- to the point that it becomes just plain boring and hard to read. The opposite is true of Lewis. This guy weaves a story that you can not put down, while giving readers a strong understanding of Dubois and the social milieus that he lived in at various points in time. Lewis also provides detailed documentation of sources. He is a fine historian and biographer.

The humanity of Du Bois
After the first few sentences of this masterpiece by David Levering Lewis, it is obvious why his account of the second half of the life of Du Bois won the Pulitzer Prize For Biography.Lewis possesses a writing style that has smoothness to it. Page after page the life of W. E. B. Du Bois and the thoughts of the man seem real enough to be your own (provided you can accept the controversy of a figure as great as Du Bois).Lewis does his best to be objective in his account of Du Bois, or I should say, as objective as is possible for a historian.Lewis is unafraid to show the human side of Du Bois; the side that engaged in regular extra-marital affairs, and the side that overlooked the atrocities committed by such variances as the governments of Japan, Stalin and Mao.
Du Bois is portrayed as genuine from the start.He genuinely wanted to help his people, the African Americans, achieve the franchise and self-determination.He wanted to not only achieve this for the American Africans, but for world Africans, people of color and those of Nordic or Aryan origin, in that order.Ultimately he WAS an anti-imperialist.He was against exploitation of all peoples by Capitalistic domination.He was all for eradicating poverty wherever it may be found as he believed that to be one of the underlying causes of racism, and ultimately, war.In the efforts of this noble pursuit, Du Bois was open to any system available that would allow the eradication of racism and poverty.He refused, however, to be confined to a box as Lewis portrayed in the astute observation that he was "A thinker whose obligation was to be dissatisfied continually with his own thoughts and those of others".His study of Marxism came relatively late in life, but Lewis is very fair in his portrayal of the revolution in Russia and how it would have affected the mind of Du Bois.Here was a mind looking for a way out, and he saw in the Russian, and later the Chinese, revolutions the first establishments of governments whose primary mission was stated to eradicate poverty and provide literacy, free health care, and the full benefits of the means of production to everyone.To state whether or not these governments actually achieved this misses the point.Du Bois was looking for a better way for his people, and did not restrict his thinking to a purely "American" line.He even went so far as to join the Communist Party USA in his 90's.He believed that Capitalism would ultimately destroy its people and eventually itself.As an alternative, he believed the only way to be one where the lower classes of society had the power.As an observer of politics in America, he was ahead of his time in realizing that the two-party system would never work.He deplored the fact that business had so much say in government and said that a citizenry governed by Democrats and Republicans, both of which were controlled by the rich, was NOT a democracy.
Lewis takes the time to show that the life of a great African-American thinker during the critical times of Reconstruction, the turn of the century, Jim Crow and two World Wars was not a life without adversity.Sure Du Bois had an ego that could be easily bruised at times, but, more often than not, he found himself and his life guarded by people with a lighter skin tone whose intelligence was merely a fraction of the man they were restricting.
This is a book whose tone may not agree with everyone.Like Du Bois himself, some will accuse Lewis of being too radical, of not coming down hard enough on radical ideology.It must be stated before you read this book that it is radical because the subject of the book is radical.Historical figures like the one portrayed here challenge us in our own thinking.They challenge us to re-evaluate how we are living in the possibility that there IS a better way.The importance of remembering not to define one's self by the currents flowing through society in the pursuit of equality is no where better stated than in the life of W. E. B. Du Bois.

Keeping The Heat On In The U.S. Kitchen
Mr. Lewis' second and final volume about Mr. Du Bois' life is a thorough undertaking which began with his outstanding first book, "Biography of a Race." The author takes the reader through Du Bois' struggles with the demagogue Marcus Garvey, the NAACP, the Depression, WWI and WWII, Southern lynchings, J. Edgar Hoover, Jim Crow and the Red Scare, to name just a few. Mr. Lewis gives ample time to place Du Bois in the social mind-sets of the respective eras in which the icon lived. You get to know this brilliant man, warts and all. Some aspects of his personality are to be greatly admired and other parts of him, such as his eventual near-blind devotion to communism and multiple philanderings, made me cringe. Though I agree that the book feels rushed in presenting the last years of his life, after reading these two large volumes, I had my fill of the subject matter. Du Bois was a complicated man who forced the world to face the illogical attitude about racism and the need to expand civil rights. A must read for anyone that wants to understand race in the United States.

Detailed and thought provoking
I am impressed with the level of detail that the author went to, in order to paint a complete picture of Du Bois.Du Bois himself lived in a remarkable time in American history (being born a few years after slavery ended and dying months before Dr. Martin Luther King's march on Washington)Lewis captures the evolution of the time and the character of the day with his detailed portrayl of Du Bois' life, and the major events that captured the nations attention during that time.

Good but not great follow-up
I just finished rereading DL Lewis's first DuBois biography, and am thinking about purchasing the second bio. I own a copy of the first, and did read the second bio as a library book. Reading the current reviewer comments for this book refreshed my memory somewhat about the second bio. I would agree with reader praise for the first bio; it is a splendid book, as good as historical biography can be. The second bio starts out well but ends up reading as having been rushed, which is probably what happened, Lewis rushing to meet a publishing deadline. We would all be well served if Mr. Lewis would consider reissuing the second bio when he has time to flesh it out. ... Read more

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In this series of interlocking essays, which had their start as lectures inspired by the presidency of Barack Obama, Robert Burns Stepto sets canonical works of African American literature in conversation with Obama’s Dreams from My Father. The elegant readings that result shed surprising light on unexamined angles of works ranging from Frederick Douglass’s Narrative to W. E. B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk to Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

Stepto draws our attention to the concerns that recur in the books he takes up: how protagonists raise themselves, often without one or both parents; how black boys invent black manhood, often with no models before them; how protagonists seek and find a home elsewhere; and how they create personalities that can deal with the pain of abandonment. These are age-old themes in African American literature that, Stepto shows, gain a special poignancy and importance because our president has lived through these situations and circumstances and has written about them in a way that refreshes our understanding of the whole of African American literature.

Stepto amplifies these themes in four additional essays, which investigate Douglass’s correspondence with Harriet Beecher Stowe; Willard Savoy’s novel Alien Land and its interracial protagonist; the writer’s understanding of the reader in African American literature; and Stepto’s account of his own schoolhouse lessons, with their echoes of Douglass’ and Obama’s experiences.

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The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois Reader encompasses the whole of Du Bois' long and multifaceted writing career, from the 1890s through the early 1960s. The volume selects key essays and longer works that portray the range of Du Bois's thought on such subjects as African American culture, the politics and sociology of American race relations, art and music, black leadership, gender and women's rights, Pan Africanism and anti-colonialism, and Communism in the U.S. and abroad. Reprinted in their entirety are Du Bois's most famous book, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and his landmark work on colonialism, Darkwater (1920), which contains many of Du Bois's best-known shorter essays. Key chapters drawn from full-length studies, including The Philadelphia Negro, The Gift of Black Folk, In Battle for Peace, and Du Bois's posthumous autobiography are supplemented by dozens of shorter essays covering topics in literature, education, African politics, urban studies, and American foreign policy. Supplemented by by an extensive critical introduction and headnotes to major works and topics, this Oxford Reader offers the most extensive compilation of Du Bois's writings now available. ... Read more

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Comprehensive, well-documented, and impartial 1896 classic draws upon a wealth of primary source materials to examineslavery in the U.S. Topics include slavery’s consideration by the Constitutional Convention, 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. Of major interest to students of African-American history and anyone concerned with the struggle for racial equality in America.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Dispassionate but riveting
Nearly half of the book that I have is made up of appendices, indicating the degree to which DuBois thoroughly, painstakingly researched this essential aspect of American history.While written by an African-American, it is all the more powerful because of the way DuBois lets the evidence speak for itself.There is no ranting or raving, not even much editorializing.Its calm, even, measured tone is remarkable, hypnotic.And the most powerful aspect of his study may be in the reader's natural tendency to apply its insights into American government as it relates to current unresolved issues, say global warming for example, or our political and/or military involvement outside our boundaries.On slavery, we were very slow to react to the issue, and did so with weak-hearted half-measures, until the national calmaity of the Civil War resolved the issue for once and for all -- but at what a risk, and what a cost!In the end, as Dubois says, it took a "fortuitous commingling of moral, political, and economic motives" to end the slave trade and slavery itself once and for all.I was so disappointed when I reached the appendices and realized that the book was over!I found it a gripping read that has fundamentally changed the way I look at America and its governmental processes.

America's failure to suppress the slave trade
W.E.B. Du Bois, in this 1896 doctoral thesis, uses primarily economic rationales to explain the United States government's lack of suppression of the African slave-trade even after outlawing it in 1808.Du Bois shows how state and federal laws written to suppress the slave trade either lacked enforcement or were eventually repealed to a point at which "the American slave-trade finally came to be carried on principally by United States capital, in United States ships, offered by United States citizens, and under the United States flag."The political efforts to suppress the slave trade are depicted as futile attempts to go against prevalent laissez-faire economic attitudes.The objective way Du Bois writes makes this survey of the American slave trade relevant and shocking, and may explain Du Bois' eventual embrace of socialism due to his focus on economic rationales and disenchantment with what is portrayed as systemic institutional promotion of slavery by a United States government more interested in laissez-faire forces than doing what was right. ... Read more

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''Well-documented and gracefully written, Alridge's important work fills one of the remaining gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the intellectual legacy of the leading African American scholar-activist of the twentieth century.''

--From the Foreword by V.P. Franklin, University of California, Riverside

''This book offers a much-needed update to the enormous depth of DuBois's educational philosophy. His educational vision was far beyond the debate with Booker T. Washington over curricular emphases. In this book, Alridge does a brilliant job in providing a broader and more balanced view of DuBois's intellectual and educational thought.''

--Linda M. Perkins, Claremont Graduate University

''With this superb book, Derrick Alridge has re-centered the axes of historical debate and analysis in the fields of African American educational and intellectual history. It is a welcome addition to the literature in the fields of Du Boisian Studies, American intellectual history, and African American educational history.''

--Larry L. Rowley, Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

This is the first published, comprehensive interpretation of Du Bois's educational thought. Historian Derrick P. Alridge moves beyond the overly discussed ''debates'' between Booker T. Washington and Du Bois to provide fresh insights into Du Bois's educational thinking. He draws on a plethora of published and unpublished primary sources to illuminate Du Bois's educational thought on a wide variety of issues, such as women and education, black leadership, black identity, civil rights, black higher education, community education, and academic achievement. This incisive examination of Du Bois:

* Covers 70 years of Du Bois's life, from his graduation as the first black Ph.D. recipient at Harvard to his death in Ghana.

* Traces relationships with Booker T. Washington and other African American thinkers of his time.

* Shows how events, such as lynchings, Reconstruction policies, and Progressivism influenced Du Bois's life and thinking. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Slow, Tedious Over-Detailed Writing...But Read It Anyway
I really wanted to like this book...I really did. And it's not really that bad. DuBois grants us a very revealing look at his young life, along with his education and intellectual development. His early observations and analysis of life are insightful and thought provoking.Still his writing lacks pace and fails to flow in any way other than tediously.Despite being regarded by many as one of the great men of the 20th century, his memoirs grant little to convey that greatness and leaves the reader unfulfilled at truly grasping his many accomplishments.However, DuBois' revelations regarding the N.A.A.C.P. are very interesting, and one of the better parts of the book.If you have plenty of time to spare (it's over 400 pages long) you may attain more from it than this reviewer did.

"One of the greatest thinkers ever"
This book should be read by everyone who is interested in civil rights.Dubois was the pioneer of the civil rights movement and anything he had to say deserves to be read.This book is just as important as the Autobiographies of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.After readingthis book I realized what bravery was all about.Dubois didn't have theluxury of a "movement" behind him, he stood alone.He spoke hismind to whomever he felt was hindering the progress of blacks in America. Not only did he stand alone and speak his mind but he did it in a time whena black man would be lynched simply for looking at a white person the wrongway.This book is written with the same poetic style as most of his otherwork and continues the story of his battle against oppression where"Souls of Black Folk", and "Darkwater" leave off.Youwill definately benefit by taking the time to read the almost century longjourney of one of the greatest thinkers and writers the world has everseen. ... Read more

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Carrying W.E.B. Du Bois from his birth in Massachusetts in 1868 to his death in Ghana in 1963, this concise encyclopedia covers all of the highlights of his life--his studying at Fisk, Harvard, and Berlin, his tiff with Booker T. Washington, his role with the NAACP and Pan-Africanism, his writings, his globe trotting, and his exile in Ghana. With contributions by leading scholars and a foreword by David Levering Lewis, the book provides a complete overview of Du Bois's life. Featuring the highlights of his life, the events and personalities that influenced him, his intellectual contributions, and his activism, this book provides a complete understanding of this highly influential intellectual activist. ... Read more

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The two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of W. E. B. Du Bois from renowned scholar David Levering Lewis, now in one condensed and updated volume

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois—the premier architect of the civil rights movement in America—was a towering and controversial personality, a fiercely proud individual blessed with the language of the poet and the impatience of the agitator. Now, David Levering Lewis has carved one volume out of his superlative two-volume biography of this monumental figure that set the standard for historical scholarship on this era. In his magisterial prose, Lewis chronicles Du Bois’s long and storied career, detailing the momentous contributions to our national character that still echo today.

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746 pages ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A Compendium of Lost History

A big, jolly, good friend purchased my book about the Civil Rights Movement from Amazon.
After too many questions, and after his mention of the "Little Rock seeeeven", I used an invective: and, told him he and everyone needed to go back to Amazon and read, read, read.

Consequently, he bought so many books I was embarrassed, and bought several books for myself.

The Du Bois book is a magnificient eye-opener. It consolidated a big gape in my knowledge, and explained why "we"
struggled in the 1950s and the 1960s, in Alabama and elsrwhere.

The speeches of Pres. A. Lincoln and the other great orators of his era put modern rhetoric to shame. All and everyone should read this book just for the great language.

Eric Foner's book, FOREVER FREE, contains great pictures and drawings. Each picture can be worth thousands of words!

P.S. The people at Du Bois' school, Fisk Univ., still pronounce his name "du boy."

An accurate rendering of a people
Education, Economics, Power.Exploitation of human over human.The revisionist accounts of history.All of these elements which lead naturally to racism have a central role in this monumental effort by W.E.B. Du Bois.He received a Rosenwald scholarship and two years time to research and write this book, which was a one of a kind when it was published in 1935.Most studies of the 10 years immediately following the Civil War (the period known as Reconstruction) had naturally extended the assumed inferiority of an entire race of people into a level of laziness and corruption that appeared to be unprecedented.These versions of history have extended up to our present time, as this is the first encounter I have had with this view of Reconstruction.It is certainly not the common view that is taught in our schools and colleges.The reasons for this "historical blind spot" are debatable.It could be the Marxian economics that are obvious in the text, it could be that this period of history is an embarrassment to the nation, or it could be that racism is still inherent and blatant in our culture.I believe that all three have a part in the writing of today's textbooks.
Du Bois had to begin this book by stating that he wrote this version of Reconstruction with the view that the African American is in fact a human being.That statement alone summed up 300 years of assumed inferiority that continues in the re-writing of history to this moment.To many of us it is hard to imagine the level of ignorance and the false sense of superiority that would have to be achieved in order to directly hold another race of people involuntarily in servitude.At the same time, we engage in work and consumption in a Capitalistic society that makes our way of life possible by exploiting the work of other humans at below subsistence wages...or in virtual slavery.These faces are not always as obvious as they were in the period of chattel slavery in American history, but they are just as human.Du Bois touches on this topic in the book, and makes the startling (and prophetic) observation that more often than not these peoples are those of color.If we think about the worst exploitation on the planet today, we can see that this is true.It is the northern hemisphere of the planet that seems to keep the southern in subjection, striking a startling parallel to the North and South in the period of Reconstruction.
The Civil War itself is approached from a different perspective than what we are taught in our schools.Lincoln is portrayed fairly and accurately as a man who only came to terms with the idea of freeing the slaves when he saw how effectively they fought in the war.It is a shame that it took this bloodshed for him to see the humanity of the race.
Perhaps the most important element of the book for its time was the example of the eagerness of the freedmen to build schools and to hold political office.The freedmen took these efforts seriously, and against all odds, kept basic education and their power with the ballot alive.It is only due to the fact that the various economic forces were able to keep the war going that the African American was once again subjected to virtual slavery.
It is beyond the scope of this book to examine the Civil Rights movements of the 20th century, but an important and truthful foundation is laid here. Without reading and understanding this work of Du Bois, it is hard to establish a clear picture of the era of race relations that was to follow.From an economic perspective, it is easy to see how the negative aspects of race relations are essential to the power of the rich.This idea permeates the book and shows the roots of the hatred that created one of the great travesties in the history of mankind.

An astonishing work!
I don't know why, but I waited a while before writing a review of this book. I couldn't get past the violence this book represented. Given the current state of affairs, I think it's finally fitting to publish my opinion. I was struck by the exhaustive nature of the book. Mr. DuBois leaves little to the imagination during this dark period. I was also struck by the bitter level of hatred afoot in the country at that time. Hatred throughout the land was so deeply entrenched, it's hard to believe we've made such tremendous strides in such a short period of time; South Carolina, Alabama and Texas were especially heinous. It must've been humiliating for the nation's first African American Harvard graduate to ask for the funds and accommodations to write such a book, when there was no obvious audience when it was undertaken. The publishing of this book is testament to the forward thinkers (wealthy liberal whites) of the time and I commend them for their courage. Frankly, this book should be required reading for those who complain of inequality because present day struggles pale in comparison. Let's face it, the Reconstruction Era is seen as a failed period in American history. After the war and against tremendous push back, Lincoln set out to repair the frayed lines of earnest entitlement and paid for it with his life. Unfortunately, his enlightened vision wasn't shared by the southern states or its sympathizers. Subsequently, the progressive momentum of the Republican Party was wholly reversed and forever damaged by the actions of Andrew Johnson. Following his political reversals, atrocities became the norm; consequently, DuBois's flirtation with Marxism is wholly understandable. More than equality, disenfranchised slaves craved federal protection from the accepted wrath of ugliness perpetrated against their families during the period. I think the need for protection represents the initial incubation period for the African American communities propensity for government intervention (I also realize that may be a bit of a stretch). On a more positive note, the tenacity of those who assisted ex-slaves cannot be dismissed (for instance, most people don't know the Bush family played a big role in freeing the slaves). What it must've been like for those who disagreed with the masses? In the end, the sacrifices may have paid off; the palpable feeling of common interest is a credit to the true strength of the nation; then and now. It puts recent developments in perspective.

Powerful Historiography of a developing America
If history is a matter of recapturing lost voices, Du Bois does so splendidly in Black Reconstruction. It is somewhat of a tome: this is not summer beach reading. Instead, Du Bois systematically reveals Reconstruction as a critical period of economic and legal development in American history. Themes touched on are black rights, the fledgling American worker's movement, the rise of the corporation, and the corrupt nature of Southern AND Northern American politics vis a vis wealthy white landowners.
If you are interested in a Marxist interpretation of 19th century American history, the general history of Reconstruction itself, or the history of the Civil War, this is a must-read. If you are even remotely curious about the history of civil rights in America, this is a must-read. If you are interested in American history whatsoever, you will not regret reading this book. By all rights, it should be a part of every high school curriculum.

Black Reconstruction is a landmark text
This book is incredibly well-researched, strongly argued, and exceptionally well-written. DuBois is someone whom I have always greatly respected, and it was a pleasure to read another of his incredible texts. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more