The Souls of Black Folk (Enriched Classics Series)

BCENTEREnduring Liturature Illuminated by Practical Scholarship /CENTER/BP A revolutionary collection of essays about the African-American experience at the turn of the twentieth century. P This Enriched Classic Edition includes: P • A concise introduction that gives readers important background information P • A chronology of the author's life and work P • A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context P • An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations P • Detailed explanatory notes P • Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work P • Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction P • A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience P Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. P Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson

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, IThe Souls of Black Folk/I, 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.p 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 IThe Souls of Black Folk/I, 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. I--Eugene Holley Jr./I