W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk
A Graphic Interpretation
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- $36.99
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- $36.99
Publisher Description
“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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Hear my cry, O God the reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not stillborn into the world wilderness," cries visionary scholar Du Bois (1868–1963) in lament. Cartoonist Peart-Smith (Horrible Histories) answers with an uneven nine-chapter graphic adaptation of Du Bois's influential literary text. In "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," undefined faces haunt Du Bois's recollection of his boyhood and the "problem of the color line." In "Of the Meaning of Progress," sepia-lacquered scenes of barefoot schoolchildren and farm labor underscore the tension between opportunity and strife for post-Reconstruction-era Black Americans. The lithograph-like drawings, awash in earth tones, while reflective of painful circumstances, also suffer from muddied details and literal thematic translations that inconsistently elevate the original text. "Of the Coming of John" benefits most from the vivid retelling of John Jones, a young Black boy who leaves southeastern Georgia for a better education up north and returns an embittered man. The art amplifies the horror of John's tragic life—wide eyes and gritted teeth denote terror and pain. More detailed linework is employed for historical figures, such as Booker T. Washington. With varying degrees of success, this adaptation enlivens while condensing an important historical work, which, while not quite expanding on the original, will make its dense arguments accessible for a new generations.
