W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919
David Levering LewisOverview
This monumental biography—eight years in the research and writing—treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.
A founder of the NAACP, a brilliant scholar and writer, Du Bois was a towering and controversial personality--a fiercely proud individual blessed with the language of the poet and the agitator's impatience. This book tracks the evolution of Du Bois' thinking and his tireless battles against racism. Photo inserts.
Synopsis
This monumental biography—eight years in the research and writing—treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.
New York Times Books of the Century
Mr. Lewis tells a well-known story in such rich detail and with so many fresh insights that one ends this volume eager to see the next.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"A remarkable study . . . . Mr. Lewis so vividly evokes the environments that shaped Du Bois that one almost participates in the life."—Waldo E. Martin, Jr., The New York Times Book Review"An engrossing masterpiece . . . . A dazzling feat of scholarship performed with Lewis's customary grace of style."—Nell Irvin Painter, The Washington Post Book World
"To say that Lewis's is the finest biography of Du Bois ever written hardly does justice to his performance. Until the publication of this superb new book, Du Bois's life had never received the treatment it deserves."—Eric Foner, The Nation
"A marvel of scholarship and discernement. David Levering Lewis's remarkable, stunningly detailed book reshapes our understanding of Du Bois at so many points as to instantly become the standard biography."—Martin Bauml Duberman
New York Times Books of the Century
Mr. Lewis tells a well-known story in such rich detail and with so many fresh insights that one ends this volume eager to see the next.Publishers Weekly
This rich, masterful biography covers the first half of the complex life and abundant career of scholar/activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963), whose work both redefined the history of race relations and spurred the 20th-century civil rights movement. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including critical readings of Du Bois's memoirs, which he ``retouched . . . to produce the desired image of impregnable racial pride,'' Lewis advances the narrative with grace and energy. He traces the growth of Du Bois's racial identity in his Massachusetts hometown, Great Barrington, his ``safe harbor'' at black Fisk University and studies at Harvard under philosophers like William James and George Santayana. Lewis finds the roots of Du Bois's idea that the ``Talented Tenth'' should lead blacks in a commencement sermon by a black priest at Wilberforce University in Ohio, where Du Bois had his first faculty job. Lewis ( When Harlem Was in Vogue ) thoroughly explains Du Bois's major ideas, such as his view that black Americans faced a ``double consciousness'' and his analysis of the black community's class structure in The Philadelphia Negro. Even more compelling is the author's description of how Du Bois, the man of ``incorrigible candor'' who founded the NAACP, clashed for years with Booker T. Washington, the 19th century's ``Great Accommodator,'' whom he succeeded as the preeminent voice of black Americans. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)Library Journal
Author, activist, founder of the NAACP, and scholar, Du Bois (1868-1963) stands as one of the dominant figures of the 20th century. While other biographers have offered parts of the legend, Lewis, a professor at Rutgers University and the author of When Harlem Was in Vogue (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1989), presents a whole. He has deftly plumbed the life and works of Du Bois during the first half of his life, fixing them in an ideological landscape that yields new perspectives on Du Bois's character and the composition and meaning of his writings. In lustrous prose that relies on masterful, exhaustive research, Lewis offers a penetrating psychological examination that reveals the contradictions, paradoxes, and psychosexual energies of a virtually fatherless, self-created intellectual battling despair and self-doubt while confronting how the world was thinking about race. This treasure belongs in every collection. Highly recommended. See also ``W.E.B. Du Bois: A Century of Conscience,'' LJ 8/93, p. 122-123, and ``African Americans in the Spotlight,'' p. 118-124, this issue; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/93.--Ed.-- Thomas J. Davis, Univ. at Buffalo, N.Y.School Library Journal
YA-More than a biography of an illustrious man, this first volume in a projected series is truly a history of the African-American experience. The first 50 years of DuBois's life are detailed, not only on a personal level but also in the context of American history. This exhaustive study includes an in-depth analysis of the civil rights movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The inner struggles and those between African-Americans make for fascinating reading, especially the clashes in philosophy between DuBois and Booker T. Washington. This is a major reference work, a tribute not only to a man who was dedicated to the advancement of his race, but also a marvelous account of the staggering problems and proposed solutions of the early civil rights movement. A magnificent resource.-Pat Royal, Crossland High School, Camp Springs, MDBooknews
A literate, meticulously researched biography of the complex scholar/activist DuBois, premier architect of the civil rights movement in the United States. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Sacred Fire
It took renowned biographer David Levering Lewis eight years to research and write William Edward Burghardt Du Bois's monumental biography. And it stands as a testament to the hypnotic voice and compelling vision of the man who was known as the foremost constructor of the civil rights movement.W. E. B. Du Bois, born in Massachusetts in 1868, was imbued with a mix of Dutch, black, and French blood. Although he was born three years after slavery was outlawed, Du Bois insisted that equal rights for blacks were still missing from American society. A man of staggering intellect and drive, Du Bois was the first black to hold a doctorate from Harvard University and was one of the founders of the NAACP. He wrote three historical works, two novels, two autobiographies, and sixteen pioneering books on sociology, history, politics, and race relations, including the monumental achievement The Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois also shaped the concept of a black intellectual elite, or a "Talented Tenth" of politicians, writers, and thinkers who would unite black America and foster the idea of blacks as a race of forceful and creative thinkers.
In 1963 on the day of the civil rights march in Washington, a speaker arrived with the news that Du Bois had died that momentous day at the age of 95. A hush descended over the huge crowd. A pall had settled because the man most responsible for the event would not be able to see it. Such was the power of Du Bois's personality, drive, intellect, and vision.