"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."
These were the prescient words of W. E. B. Du Bois's influential 1903
book The Souls of Black Folk. The preeminent Black intellectual of his
generation, Du Bois wrote about the trauma of seeing the Reconstruction
era's promise of racial equality cruelly dashed by the rise of white
supremacist terror and Jim Crow laws. Yet he also argued for the value
of African American cultural traditions and provided inspiration for
countless civil rights leaders who followed him. Now artist Paul
Peart-Smith offers the first graphic adaptation of Du Bois's seminal
work.
Peart-Smith's graphic adaptation provides historical and cultural
contexts that bring to life the world behind Du Bois's words. Readers
will get a deeper understanding of the cultural debates The Souls of
Black Folk engaged in, with more background on figures like Booker T.
Washington, the advocate of black economic uplift, and the
Pan-Africanist minister Alexander Crummell. This beautifully illustrated
book vividly conveys the continuing legacy of The Souls of Black Folk,
effectively updating it for the era of the 1619 Project and Black Lives
Matter.