W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk
180 pages, 7 x 8 1/2
30 bw, 102 color illustrations
Paperback
Release Date:14 Apr 2023
ISBN:9781978824652
Hardcover
Release Date:14 Apr 2023
ISBN:9781978824669
W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk
A Graphic Interpretation
By W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) and Paul Peart-Smith; Edited by Paul Buhle and Herb Boyd; Introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway
Rutgers University Press
“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.
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.
In this wonderfully innovative collaboration of image and text, Buhle, Boyd, and Peart-Smith present a graphic W.E.B. Du Bois whose immemorial words are so brilliantly visualized that Souls will speak to generations to come. Buhle, Boyd, and Peart-Smith's offering is superb.’
[A] masterpiece...Peart-Smith’s work in this text expresses the pain, frustration and the joy DuBois’ text is known for. The art is both realistic and dreamlike....This retelling of The Souls of Black Folk deserves a place among the pantheon of great graphic texts like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alan Moore’s The Watchmen.'
[A] masterful graphic adaptation and edited interpretation...[I]n their stylistic and artistic representation of Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk, Peart-Smith, Buhle, and Boyd provide the public and the world of academia with a stellar presentation and remembrance of Du Bois’s pungent polemic and profound prophecy.
An incredible achievement. This work makes Du Bois accessible in whole new ways and does so with great pathos and sensitivity. I don’t know how you can read this book and not be moved and outraged. Outraged, because it’s all still so relevant. That I have to type that gives me a vertiginous feeling, but it’s true, and in that sense, it’s incredibly timely.
PAUL PEART-SMITH, an artist of Afro-Caribbean and British background, has been working in the comics industry since the early 1990s, when he worked on Judge Dredd. Co-curator of the comics exhibition Black Power, he now lives in Tasmania.
PAUL BUHLE has been a key creative force in the development of comics for more than fifty years, publishing one of the first alternative comics, as well as editing graphic novels on subjects ranging from the Wobblies to Che Guevara. He is the coeditor of Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson (Rutgers University Press).
HERB BOYD is a veteran journalist of African American life and culture, working frequently with artists.
JONATHAN SCOTT HOLLOWAY is the twenty-first president of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is the author of The Cause of Freedom: A Concise History of African Americans.
PAUL BUHLE has been a key creative force in the development of comics for more than fifty years, publishing one of the first alternative comics, as well as editing graphic novels on subjects ranging from the Wobblies to Che Guevara. He is the coeditor of Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson (Rutgers University Press).
HERB BOYD is a veteran journalist of African American life and culture, working frequently with artists.
JONATHAN SCOTT HOLLOWAY is the twenty-first president of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is the author of The Cause of Freedom: A Concise History of African Americans.
Introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway
I Of Our Spiritual Strivings
II Of the Dawn of Freedom
III Of Booker T. Washington
IV Of the Meaning of Progress
V Of the Training of Black Folk
VI Of the Passing of the First-Born
VII Of Alexander Crummell
VIII Of the Coming of John
IX Of the Sorrow Songs
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Notes on Contributors
I Of Our Spiritual Strivings
II Of the Dawn of Freedom
III Of Booker T. Washington
IV Of the Meaning of Progress
V Of the Training of Black Folk
VI Of the Passing of the First-Born
VII Of Alexander Crummell
VIII Of the Coming of John
IX Of the Sorrow Songs
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Notes on Contributors
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