W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 - Hardcover

David Levering Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805026215 ISBN 13: 9780805026214

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1993

Synopsis

A definitive biography of the African-American author and scholar describes Du Bois's formative years, the evolution of his philosophy, and his roles as a founder of the NAACP and architect of the American civil rights movement. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo. Tour.

About this title

Review

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 Kirkus Reviews

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) has finally found a Boswell worthy of his achievements as an African-American reformer who fought for human rights in the US and the wider world. In the first part of a projected two-volume biography, Rutgers history professor Lewis (The Race to Fashoda, 1988, etc.) offers a detailed chronicle that puts the eventful origins of a towering figure clearly in the perspective of his troubled times. Born in western Massachusetts less than three years after the abolition of slavery, Du Bois managed to earn a doctorate in history from Harvard. After graduating, he pursued one of the few careers open to educated blacks, that of teaching--at Atlanta University and other institutions. Meanwhile, he published pioneering sociological studies (The Philadelphia Negro, etc.), arranged symposiums, and helped found the Niagara Movement--an all- black group that in 1909 joined forces with liberal whites to form the NAACP. Du Bois left academe to become the NAACP's director of research and publicity as well as editor of its influential magazine, The Crisis. From this bully pulpit, he battled for racial justice; conducted intellectual inquiries (among other matters, on the talented-tenth theory); critiqued the views of rivals like Booker T. Washington (``the great accommodator''); and otherwise played to the hilt the role of outside agitator (he was active in the Pan-African cause as well). Here, he's last seen after a post- WW I congress that called for direct League of Nations supervision of German colonies in Africa, as he himself returns to a society that brutally and methodically excluded ``his people from meaningful citizenship....'' A masterly appreciation of a great man's intellectual development and singular service in a righteous crusade. (Thirty- two pages of photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0805026215
• ISBN 13: 9780805026214
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 735