W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation

"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.


Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 04/14/2023
Pages: 180
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.53h x 7.06w x 0.51d
ISBN: 9781978824652


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/24/2023

About the Author
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.