W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race : 1868-1919 (Web Dubois Biography of a Race)

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Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing; Original edition (March 26, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781602393417
ISBN-13: 978-1602393417
ASIN: 1602393419
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

W.E.B. Du Bois--the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard, one of the founders of the NAACP, visionary Pan-Africanist intellectual, and author of the seminal text The Souls of Black Folks--has not received due honor in his own country because of his radicalism in later life. Du Bois, hounded during the McCarthy era for his left wing beliefs, eventually gave up his American citizenship. But as a revered leader of black people worldwide, Du Bois merited a state funeral in Ghana when he died there in 1963. This first volume in Lewis's biography, winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize, details Du Bois' early life and work, up to the landmark Pan-African Congress following World War I, which brought "black liberation" to world attention. From Publishers Weekly This rich, masterful biography covers the first half of the complex life and abundant career of scholar/activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963), whose work both redefined the history of race relations and spurred the 20th-century civil rights movement. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including critical readings of Du Bois's memoirs, which he "retouched . . . to produce the desired image of impregnable racial pride," Lewis advances the narrative with grace and energy. He traces the growth of Du Bois's racial identity in his Massachusetts hometown, Great Barrington, his "safe harbor" at black Fisk University and studies at Harvard under philosophers like William James and George Santayana. Lewis finds the roots of Du Bois's idea that the "Talented Tenth" should lead blacks in a commencement sermon by a black priest at Wilberforce University in Ohio, where Du Bois had his first faculty job. Lewis ( When Harlem Was in Vogue ) thoroughly explains Du Bois's major ideas, such as his view that black Americans faced a "double consciousness" and his analysis of the black community's class structure in The Philadelphia Negro. Even more compelling is the author's description of how Du Bois, the man of "incorrigible candor" who founded the NAACP, clashed for years with Booker T. Washington, the 19th century's "Great Accommodator," whom he succeeded as the preeminent voice of black Americans. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race : 1868-1919 (Web Dubois Biography of a Race)