Guyanese Online

W. E. B. Du Bois

APRIL 24, 2015 – http://worldisafrica.org/2015/04/24/the-souls-of-black-folk-by-w-e-b-du-bois/

The Souls of Black Folk –  by W. E. B. Du Bois

“Herein lie buried many things which, if read with patience, may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the 20th century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line”.

 This prophecy may have seemed far-fetched when first published in 1903, but it was to prove more and more compelling as the century advanced. Its author was WEB du Bois, the greatest of the early civil-rights leaders, a figure of towering significance in American politics and letters, whose life and work are – alas – little known on this side of the Atlantic. 

Remembered for his single-minded commitment to racial justice and his capacity to shape black consciousness, Du Bois used language and ideas to hammer out a strategy for political equality and to sound the depths of the black experience in the aftermath of slavery. In his book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois set out to paint a vivid portrait of black people in the decades after emancipation in 1862 – how they lived and who they really were: and thus to enlighten white America – still profoundly attached to the myths of black inferiority – as to the true meaning of being black in post-civil war America.   [ Read more ]