The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois (Electronic book text)

Scholar, author, editor, teacher, reformer, and civil rights leader, W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was a major figure in American life and one of the earliest proponents of equality for black Americans. He was a founder and leader of the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the Pan-African Movement; a progenitor of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance; an advocate of anticolonialism, anti-imperialism, unionism, and equality for women; and a champion of the rights of oppressed people around the world.

The three-volume Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois offers a unique perspective on Du Bois's experiences and views. In recognition of the significance of the Correspondence, the final volume was named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review.

Herbert Aptheker has provided an introduction and notes to each volume, illuminating the circumstances and identifying the personalities involved in the correspondence.

"An excellent job of editing.... There is not an editorial comment nor an editorial footnote that is superfluous. There is not a single letter nor an exchange of letters that does not contribute to the reader's understanding of Du Bois himself or of the history of the times through which Du Bois lived and upon which he had a very considerable effect". -- Jay Saunders Redding, Phylon

"Du Bois's long life and committed scholarship were devoted to a belief in the ultimate realization of one world free of racial or ethnic division and strife, economic exploitation and inequity, capable of unlimited intellectual, scientific and technological development for the benefit of humankind". -- David Graham Du Bois

"It is a remarkable fact that this volume brings to completion the firstcollection of the correspondence of any black American. As such, it is a milestone in the coming of age of Afro-American history, a subject whose scholarly acceptance is among W.E.B. Du Bois's most outstanding legacies". -- New York Times Book Review

This correspondence concerns such topics as Du Bois's brief and stormy involvement with the NAACP, his activism in support of Pan-African liberation and world peace, his continued opposition to McCarthyism and to the federal government's Cold War policies, his decision in 1961 to join the American Communist Party, and his move to Ghana, where he spent the last two years of his life.