W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most brilliant men of words and action born in the United States. By his death at ninety-three, he had become not only a product of African American history but a significant director of its course as well. In his youth, he had been a skilled debator and orator and later had developed into a talented autobiographer who had honed his craft and had offered insightful critiques of Western history. Although he was foremost a historian and a founder of modern sociology, he achieved in several moments of exquisite prose many passages with poetic brilliance as well as profundity. He was a literary artist, a symbolist, and a writer of visionary fictions. He was a committed moralist and sometimes an all-too-prescriptive and even genteel one as well. Most of all, he was a dedicated thinker and an indefatigable researcher who wrote nearly a score of volumes and more than a hundred articles for publication. As a race leader, he helped channel the flow of scholarly method at Atlanta University and at the NAACP. All the while, Du Boishad begun to develop the idea of Pan-Africanism, a concept dedicated to the liberation of blacks throughout the world. He exploited a rare talent for language coupled with an experimental understanding in the social dynamics of race and culture. He was truly gifted, and he was most likely a genius. Here are his essential writings, spanning a long, restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade *this recounts how Americans tolerated the traffic in humans beings until taught by bloody civil war the consequences of moral cowardice. The Souls of Black Folk *these essays celebrate the strength and pride of Black America, pay tribute to black music and religion, assess the career of Booker T. Washington, remembers the death of an infant son. Dusk of Dawn *this moves from a Massachusetts boyhood to the founding of the NAACP and emerging Pan-African consciousness.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Essential Bio

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