num_pages: 608
description: The second volume of the Pulitzer Prize--winning biography that The Washington Post hailed as "an engrossing masterpiece"Charismatic, singularly determined, and controversial, W.E.B. Du Bois was a historian, novelist, editor, sociologist, founder of the NAACP, advocate of women's rights, and the premier architect of the Civil Rights movement. His hypnotic voice thunders out of David Levering Lewis's monumental biography like a locomotive under full steam.This second volume of what is already a classic work begins with the triumphal return from WWI of African American veterans to the shattering reality of racism and lynching even as America discovers the New Negro of literature and art. In stunning detail, Lewis chronicles the little-known political agenda behind the Harlem Renaissance and Du Bois's relentless fight for equality and justice, including his steadfast refusal to allow whites to interpret the aspirations of black America. Seared by the rejection of terrified liberals and the black bourgeoisie during the Communist witch-hunts, Du Bois ended his days in uncompromising exile in newly independent Ghana. In re-creating the turbulent times in which he lived and fought, Lewis restores the inspiring and famed Du Bois to his central place in American history.
language: English
title: W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963
titlecomplete: W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963
characters: W.E.B. Du Bois
genres: Biography, Politics, Education, Nonfiction, American History, Biography Memoir, 20th Century, Race, History, African American
ratings_count: 548
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Biography or Autobiography, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Nonfiction
publisher: Henry Holt and Co.