What do you think?
Rate this book
Library of America #34
Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays and Articles
Historian, sociologist, novelist, editor, and political activist, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was the most gifted and influential black intellectual of his time. This Library of America volume presents his essential writings, covering the full span of a restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice.
The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (1896), his first book, renders a dispassionate account of how, despite ethical and political opposition, Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until a bloody civil war taught them the disastrous consequences of moral cowardice.
The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of beautifully written essays, narrates the cruelties of racism and celebrates the strength and pride of black America. By turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical, Du Bois pays tribute to black music and religion, explores the remarkable history of the Reconstruction Freedman’s Bureau, assesses the career of Booker T. Washington, and remembers the death of his infant son.
Dusk of Dawn (1940) was described by Du Bois as an attempt to elucidate the “race problem” in terms of his own experience. It describes his boyhood in western Massachusetts, his years at Fisk and Harvard universities, his study and travel abroad, his role in founding the NAACP and his long association with it, and his emerging Pan-African consciousness. He called this autobiography his response to an “environing world” that “guided, embittered, illuminated and enshrouded my life.”
Du Bois’s influential essays and speeches span the period from 1890 to 1958. They record his evolving positions on the issues that dominated his long, active life: education in a segregated society; black history, art, literature, and culture; the controversial career of Marcus Garvey; the fate of black soldiers in the First World War; the appeal of communism to frustrated black Americans; his trial and acquittal during the McCarthy era; and the elusive promise of an African homeland.
The editorials and articles from The Crisis (1910–1934) belong to the period of Du Bois’s greatest influence. During his editorship of the NAACP magazine that he founded, Du Bois wrote pieces on virtually every aspect of American political, cultural, and economic life. Witty and sardonic, angry and satiric, proud and mournful, these writings show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant.
The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (1896), his first book, renders a dispassionate account of how, despite ethical and political opposition, Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until a bloody civil war taught them the disastrous consequences of moral cowardice.
The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of beautifully written essays, narrates the cruelties of racism and celebrates the strength and pride of black America. By turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical, Du Bois pays tribute to black music and religion, explores the remarkable history of the Reconstruction Freedman’s Bureau, assesses the career of Booker T. Washington, and remembers the death of his infant son.
Dusk of Dawn (1940) was described by Du Bois as an attempt to elucidate the “race problem” in terms of his own experience. It describes his boyhood in western Massachusetts, his years at Fisk and Harvard universities, his study and travel abroad, his role in founding the NAACP and his long association with it, and his emerging Pan-African consciousness. He called this autobiography his response to an “environing world” that “guided, embittered, illuminated and enshrouded my life.”
Du Bois’s influential essays and speeches span the period from 1890 to 1958. They record his evolving positions on the issues that dominated his long, active life: education in a segregated society; black history, art, literature, and culture; the controversial career of Marcus Garvey; the fate of black soldiers in the First World War; the appeal of communism to frustrated black Americans; his trial and acquittal during the McCarthy era; and the elusive promise of an African homeland.
The editorials and articles from The Crisis (1910–1934) belong to the period of Du Bois’s greatest influence. During his editorship of the NAACP magazine that he founded, Du Bois wrote pieces on virtually every aspect of American political, cultural, and economic life. Witty and sardonic, angry and satiric, proud and mournful, these writings show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant.
1334 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
35 people are currently reading
1685 people want to read
About the author
W.E.B. Du Bois
607 books1,486 followersIn 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced 'doo-boyz') was born in Massachusetts. He attended Fisk College in Nashville, then earned his BA in 1890 and his MS in 1891 from Harvard. Du Bois studied at the University of Berlin, then earned his doctorate in history from Harvard in 1894. He taught economics and history at Atlanta University from 1897-1910. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) made his name, in which he urged black Americans to stand up for their educational and economic rights. Du Bois was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and edited the NAACP's official journal, "Crisis," from 1910 to 1934. Du Bois turned "Crisis" into the foremost black literary journal. The black nationalist expanded his interests to global concerns, and is called the "father of Pan-Africanism" for organizing international black congresses.
Although he used some religious metaphor and expressions in some of his books and writings, Du Bois called himself a freethinker. In "On Christianity," a posthumously published essay, Du Bois critiqued the black church: "The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer." Du Bois became a member of the Communist Party and officially repudiated his U.S. citizenship at the end of his life, dying in his adopted country of Ghana. D. 1963.
More: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stori...
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0his...
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dub...
Although he used some religious metaphor and expressions in some of his books and writings, Du Bois called himself a freethinker. In "On Christianity," a posthumously published essay, Du Bois critiqued the black church: "The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer." Du Bois became a member of the Communist Party and officially repudiated his U.S. citizenship at the end of his life, dying in his adopted country of Ghana. D. 1963.
More: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stori...
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/0his...
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dub...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 22, 2025
It's impossible to do justice to the genius of W.E.B. Du Bois in one volume, but that doesn't excuse not trying. Historian, political activist, first in the NAACP, later in the Communist Party, public intellectual, newspaper editor, THE CRISIS, and sociologist---and that list does not exhaust the man and his work. (It was a measure of the man that when Du Bois joined the CPUSA he also listed over a dozen issues on which he disagreed with the Communist Party.) The editors of the LIBRARY OF AMERICA have chosen to present Du Bois's dissertation in history at Harvard, THE SUPPRESSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE to showcase his research and writing skills, though I would have preferred BLACK RECONSTRUCTION, Du Bois's revisionist take on how the Reconstruction governments in the South, 1865-1875 empowered the Negro in politics. DUSK OF DAWN is an autobiography, just one of many penned by Du Bois, in the form of a meditation on race in America and his own African-French-Dutch-English background. SOULS OF BLACK FOLK is a masterful collection of essays ranging in topic from the Freedman's Bureau to his polemic with Booker T. Washington over integration versus separatism. Other articles taken from THE CRISIS deal with urgent issues such as lynching and the broken promises of the Democrats and Republicans towards the Negro. DU BOIS, WRITINGS, belongs on the bookshelf of every American.
May 17, 2023
This review is only for the last 400 pages of random essays and articles from The Crisis, etc. I decided to read these rather than his more famous collections of essays to get a feel for his "regular" writing. I'm glad I did.
Du Bois was a master rhetorician, and his essays make for powerful reading material. Beyond that, there is much truth to be found in his observations on race and interesting notes on colonialism. As much reading as I have done on WWI, I don't recall a single work pointing out that Belgium had colonies in Africa as well as France, Germany et al. This doesn't excuse Germany's actions during this time, but definitely puts a new light on Belgium's status as innocent. There is also much to understand about the nuances to be found among his people. He was frustrated that many did not support some of his more socialist ideas.
That said, he was not an economist. While obviously sympathetic to socialism in many of the essays, he never lays out a clear plan for how it would work. There is almost as much questioning of it as advocating for it. His main concern above all others is freedom and equal rights for his race, not economic concerns. He saw capitalism as *the* main perpetrator of racism and therefore socialism as the most likely system to alleviate the issues. But here as well, there is a great deal of hesitancy. He visited the Soviet Union and saw much with which to be appalled. He went to Germany, saw national socialism, and rejected the horrible racism toward Jews. Everything is truly a mixed bag in the ideas department.
But I think this is one of the things that makes his writing compelling...the struggle. And while many of the circumstances during which he wrote no longer exist, many of his observations remain just as poignant and relevant today...especially on the subjects of race and war. These essays round out in a profound way any reading program on this time period and for these subjects.
Du Bois was a master rhetorician, and his essays make for powerful reading material. Beyond that, there is much truth to be found in his observations on race and interesting notes on colonialism. As much reading as I have done on WWI, I don't recall a single work pointing out that Belgium had colonies in Africa as well as France, Germany et al. This doesn't excuse Germany's actions during this time, but definitely puts a new light on Belgium's status as innocent. There is also much to understand about the nuances to be found among his people. He was frustrated that many did not support some of his more socialist ideas.
That said, he was not an economist. While obviously sympathetic to socialism in many of the essays, he never lays out a clear plan for how it would work. There is almost as much questioning of it as advocating for it. His main concern above all others is freedom and equal rights for his race, not economic concerns. He saw capitalism as *the* main perpetrator of racism and therefore socialism as the most likely system to alleviate the issues. But here as well, there is a great deal of hesitancy. He visited the Soviet Union and saw much with which to be appalled. He went to Germany, saw national socialism, and rejected the horrible racism toward Jews. Everything is truly a mixed bag in the ideas department.
But I think this is one of the things that makes his writing compelling...the struggle. And while many of the circumstances during which he wrote no longer exist, many of his observations remain just as poignant and relevant today...especially on the subjects of race and war. These essays round out in a profound way any reading program on this time period and for these subjects.
May 18, 2019
I feel better now that I’ve read many of Du Bois’s major essays.
To be clear—I don’t feel better about race relations or their history. I feel better because I feel like NOT having read him, especially The Souls of Black Folk, was a major gap in my learning and understanding.
You don’t need me to recommend W.E.B. Du Bois. And neither does he. In terms of the forcefulness of his prose and the spectrum of change he occupied, I’d place him between Baldwin (my favorite) at his left and King at his right. All three were MASTER rhetoricians and courageous beyond all sound.
Even if you don’t pick up this Library of America version with his other writings, The Souls of Black Folk is essential reading for any student of history, race, and identity.
To be clear—I don’t feel better about race relations or their history. I feel better because I feel like NOT having read him, especially The Souls of Black Folk, was a major gap in my learning and understanding.
You don’t need me to recommend W.E.B. Du Bois. And neither does he. In terms of the forcefulness of his prose and the spectrum of change he occupied, I’d place him between Baldwin (my favorite) at his left and King at his right. All three were MASTER rhetoricians and courageous beyond all sound.
Even if you don’t pick up this Library of America version with his other writings, The Souls of Black Folk is essential reading for any student of history, race, and identity.
May 8, 2014
DuBois, one of the greatest and most prolific writers/thinkers of our time and one of the foundational scholars anyone, interested in "the race problem" , should use as a critical resource and guide.
August 23, 2025
Dusk of Dawn
July 8, 2009
A powerful story with a dualism that is intriguing and sad.
May 3, 2008
Opened my eyes to many things as a young male growing up in the USA.
Read
November 7, 2022How to read
Read
December 15, 2022Not much to say about this one other than that Du Bois really seems like the beginning of so much modern day thinking on race so it was fascinating and important to read.
May 21, 2008
For the book club and it was okay. Some of the chapters on how the freed slaves were financially manipulated are very powerful.
September 11, 2010
difficult read, but a classic book everyone should read about american life. He is the father of african american sociology
May 30, 2021
The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade - finished 09/28/18
The Souls of Black Folk - finished 03/03/19
Dusk of Dawn – finished 04/10/20
Essays and Articles - finished 05/29/21
The Souls of Black Folk - finished 03/03/19
Dusk of Dawn – finished 04/10/20
Essays and Articles - finished 05/29/21
Read
February 18, 2013Read this book for a class .
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews