The Souls of Black Folk / W.E.B. Du Bois / 1903

The Souls of Black Folk / W.E.B. Du Bois / 1903

I’ve read chapters of this book during my degrees and decided I had to return to read the whole thang to understand the Black Radical Tradition better. Du Bois pours his soul into every word of the text, diving between astute economic and historical truth-telling, musical criticism, and personal essays on Atlanta and the lives of everyday Black folk in the Jim Crow south. It’s all the more painful to see Du Bois’s legacy so under-talked about and misrepresented as a mere counterpoint to Booker T. Washington. It was painful to read his chapter on education, which might as well be about contemporary under-funded schools in the US. This round of reading helped really color in the picture of just how fucked the South was economically before and after the Civil War, especially during the Reconstruction period. Du Bois’s thoroughness is so earnest and unearned by this country. Amerikkka did not and does not deserve souls as beautiful as Du Bois. 5/5