Black Folk Then and Now: An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois, Volume 7

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. In Black Folk Then and Now, W. E. B. Du Bois embarks on a mission to correct the omissions, misinterpretations, and deliberate lies he detected in previous depictions of black history. An exemplary revisionist exploration of history and sociology, this essay reflects Du Bois's lifelong mission to bring to light the truths of Black history and expose the African peoples' noble heritage. W. E. B. Du Bois writes extensively about the color line, which he believed at the time of publication to be the defining problem of the twentieth century. In 1946, following the Holocaust, Du Bois revised his arguments, reshaping them into the narrative we find in The World and Africa. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Wilson Moses, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He has edited several major reference works, including Dictionary of African Biography, African American Lives, Africana, and African American National Biography. In addition, he is Editor in Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center.