Sweeping across African American history and culture in the shadow of slavery and ongoing racism, The Souls of Black Folk laid bare challenging issues sadly still relevant more than 100 years after its first publication. This collection of 14 essays is a cornerstone work of African-American literature. The author examines history and the social conditions of his era, balancing his observations with philosophical asides and autobiographical insights. He describes the central issue of the 20th century as "the problem of the color line" --a divide both visible and invisible, a veil between blacks and the white world that needs to be broken through before those on either side of it can truly know one another. He describes the tension arising from being both black and American as a dual consciousness, a unique identity which had long been a disadvantage but could conceivably become a source of strength. First published in 1903, this profoundly influential text is an acclamation of human rights, a condemnation of the systems that infringe upon them, and one of the most significant books to contribute to the cause of racial equality in US history. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Souls of Black Folk is both modern and readable.

W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois (1868-1963) was a world historian, sociologist, journalist, novelist, civil rights leader, and Pan-Africanist. He was the first Black American to earn a doctorate at Harvard and was one of the founders of the Niagara Movement, which became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He also founded the NAACP journal The Crisis and edited it for nearly a quarter of a century. Du Bois was a critic of Booker T. Washington, whom he felt was too willing to compromise about Black rights. A published writer as a teenager, Du Bois wrote prolifically until his death at ninety-five. His 1903 Souls of Black Folk is a founding text of the civil rights movement. In it, as well as in other books including the Dusk of Dawn, he used personal experience as a persuasive tool. Controversial, articulate, and impassioned, he had wide-ranging influence in the United States and around the world. Du Bois's communist beliefs led to conflicts with the US government in the 1950s, and he eventually settled in Ghana, where he died. Nonetheless, his attachment to his birthplace, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was a constant in his life, and his thinking on a broad range of issues has gained new attention in the twenty-first century. Each volume of David Levering Lewis's biography of Du Bois won a Pulitzer Prize.