W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963)

Du Bois weaves words together to create a pictorial masterpiece of literature. The sentences are so gorgeous that you want to read them out loud just to experience the pleasure of the sound and the speaking of them. I was absolutely blind-sided by their beauty because, in our internet age, that talent is often overlooked in favor of sharp, short sentences.

His words are often prophetic ("I insist that the question of the future is how best to keep these millions from brooding over the wrongs show more of the past and the difficulties of the present, so that all their energies may be bent toward a cheerful striving and cooperation with their white neighbors toward a larger, juster, and fuller future"*), heartrending (his chapters on the death of his son and the racism he observed and lived with), and thought-provoking (his chapters on education... have we forgotten its purpose?).

I highly recommend this book. It also gives you a good starting point into historical issues that may or may not be overlooked in our simplified history classes.

Also, fun fact, he is featured several times in [b:Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster|33898873|Invisible The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster|Stephen L. Carter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532468031l/33898873._SX50_.jpg|54863805] which also is a book worth your time.

*Pg. 94 show less

Hakim Adi's selection of writings about Britain (mainly England) by Black people of the late 18th to the early 20th century is carefully chosen to establish their presence in all strata of society at a date earlier than certain commentators would wish it known. There's a thread showing the development of abolitionism into emancipation into supremacism to justify the continued exploitation of Black Labour, and Adi's selections often strongly resonate with current issues, such as the Windrush show more scandal and the illegal Tory Rwanda deportation policy.

There's also many fascinating glimpses into Georgian and Victorian society and, while varying degrees of racism are noted, many of the impressions of visitors to the island are positive about their reception and of the culture in which they find themselves.

A nuanced and balanced selection of historical testimonies which I thoroughly enjoyed reading, not least the short section on John Ocansey's day trip from Liverpool to my home town of Southport 🏖️ show less

Sometimes a book just blows my mind. This is one of them!

To think that this book, with the most cogent explanation of the race situation in the US, was written over one hundred years ago is just astounding. That a black man was so well educated in the US at the start of the twentieth century was a surprise. That any person, surrounded by such prejudice, could produce such an honest book leaves me almost speechless.

Du Bois is honest about the failings of his fellows, both black and white. He show more manages to write without the venom that I know that would fill my prose, were I to live under such injustice.

And yet, and yet... I have still to pronounce its greatest achievement. When one reads a book and thinks, "I should have known that": it indicates that the facts are self evidently true.

How can this book be so little known? Were it a set book - not just in America, but in England and probably every other country too, then racism would become a thing of the past in no time. show less

In my last year of college I was part of an capstone class for my concentration in archival studies. It was a great class, mostly for the passion of my peers, and it was here that I was introduced more fully to W.E.B. Du Bois. A girl was interested in making a digital project around Mr. Du Bois' letters and the music in this book, and it was just kind of amazing to watch. My college was pretty stereotypically "left" in all the cringey, performative ways white upper-middle class young women show more tend to be, and becoming acquainted with this book through a random band nerd's love of it was just... amazing. There was no ulterior motive. She just loved Du Bois and his writing.

It took me over a read to get to but I'm really glad I did. The Souls of Black Folk is a collection of essays on the current state of Black America. It struck me as a sort of "State of the Union", recounting both the accomplishments of Black Americans but also the great challenges that lay ahead. I have a thing for hundred-year-old books that are eerily prescient, and this book was (unfortunately, in this case) that. Du Bois charts the history and failure of Reconstruction, takes some jabs at Booker T. Washington, reminisces of his days teaching Black youth in the South and the later loss of his son--and my personal favorite--an ethnography-of-sorts of the Black Belt. DuBois tells the reader:

If you wish to ride with me you must come into the “Jim Crow Car.” There will be no objection,—already four other white men, and a little white girl with her nurse, are in there. Usually the races are mixed in there; but the white coach is all white. Of course this car is not so good as the other, but it is fairly clean and comfortable. The discomfort lies chiefly in the hearts of those four black men yonder—and in mine.

It's been nearly three weeks since I finished this, and yeah. I just can't stop thinking about that paragraph. There are a lot of parts that fill that uncomfortable prophetic space, none more so than

Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape. [...] Thus grew up a double system of justice, which erred on the white side by undue leniency and the practical immunity of red-handed criminals, and erred on the black side by undue severity, injustice, and lack of discrimination.

One last point: Du Bois' prose is particularly impressive. His grasp of Classical culture and literature are apparent, and his vocabulary, figures of speech, and general artistry of writing are really bar none. It made reading it definitely a bit more laborious (I just wanted a beach read!), but it will stick with me, if not for the craft for the meta-irony of it all. We are slowly coming to realize (I hope) the fabrication of the classical canon as a sort of test of intelligence, and it's... so apparent in how DuBois comports himself in his work. I think he is very aware of the contrived quality of his writing as a sort of advertisement for educated whites to his Talented Tenth theory.

Here's her project by the way. I miss that class a lot. show less