The Souls of Black Folk: With the Talented Tenth and the Souls of White Folk ( Penguin Classics )

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, " wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk, one of the most prophetic and influential works in American literature. First published in 1903, this eloquent collection of essays exposed the magnitude of racism in our society. The book endures today as a classic document of American social and political history: a manifesto that has influenced generations with its transcendent vision of change. John Edgar Wideman observed: "Like Freud's excavations of the unconscious, Einstein's revelations of the physical universe, Marx's exploration of the economic foundations of social organization, Du Bois's insights have profoundly altered the way we look at ourselves." "[ The Souls of Black Folk is] the foundation on which Du Bois built a lifetime of ideas, and on which the black and antiracist intelligentsia continues to build today. . . . In 1903 . . . black newspapers . . . typically shouted in unison, 'SHOULD BE READ AND STUDIED BY EVERY PERSON, WHITE AND BLACK.' . . . And today it still SHOULD BE READ AND STUDIED BY EVERY PERSON." -- Ibram X. Kendi, from the Introduction Table of Contents: Introduction by Donald B. Gibson Acknowledgments Suggestions for Further Reading THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK The Forethought I. Of Our Spiritual StrivingsII. Of the Dawn of FreedomIII. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and OthersIV. Of the Meaning of ProgressV. Of the Wings of AtalantaVI. Of the Training of Black MenVII. Of the Black BeltVIII. Of the Quest of the Golden FleeceIX. Of the Sons of Master and ManX. Of the Faith of the FathersXI. Of the Passing of the First-BornXII. Of Alexander CrummellXIII. Of the Coming of JohnXIV. Of the Sorrow Songs The AfterthoughtNotes by Monica M. Elbert