Gift Black Folk by Bois, First Edition (6 results)

paperback. Condition: Very Good in Wrappers. No Jacket. First Edition. New York. 1970. September 1970. Washington Square Press. 1st Washington Square Press Paperback Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 067147832x. Introduction by Truman Nelson. 203 pages. paperback. 47832. keywords: African American Literature History America. DESCRIPTION - Explorers, inventors, soldiers, artists, writers, a people of great spirit - Black folk throughout history have played an instrumental role in shaping American society and culture. A proud and determined thinker, W. E. B. Du Bois began the movement for Black studies. In his words: 'The American Negro is and has been a distinct asset to this country. ' THE GIFT OF BLACK FOLK is the story of a heroic people. It should be required reading for every American. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 - August 27, 1963) was a black civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. He became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963 at the age of 95. David Levering Lewis, a biographer, wrote, 'In the course of his long, turbulent career, W. E. B. Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism - scholarship, propaganda, integration, national self-determination, human rights, cultural and economic separatism, politics, international communism, expatriation, third world solidarity.' W. E. B. Du Bois was born on Church Street on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, at the south-western edge of Massachusetts, to Alfred Du Bois and Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois, whose February 5, 1867, wedding had been announced in the Berkshire Courier. Alfred Du Bois had been born in Haiti. Their son was born 5 months before the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and added to the U.S. Constitution. Alfred Du Bois was descended from free people of color, including the slave-holding Dr. James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, a physician. In the Bahamas, James Du Bois had fathered three sons, including Alfred, and a daughter, by his slave mistress. Du Bois was also the great-grandson of Elizabeth Freeman ('Mum Bett'), a slave who successfully sued for her freedom, laying the groundwork for the eventual abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. Du Bois was born free and did not have contact with his biological father. He blamed his maternal grandparents for his father's leaving because they did not take kindly to him. Du Bois was very close to his mother Mary, who was from Massachusetts. Du Bois moved frequently when he was young, after Mary suffered a stroke which left her unable to work. They survived on money from family members and Du Bois' after-school jobs. Du Bois wanted to help his mother as much as possible and believed he could improve their lives through education. Some of the neighborhood whites noticed him, and one allowed Du Bois and his mother to rent a house from him in Great Barrington. While living there, Du Bois performed chores and worked odd jobs. Du Bois did not feel differently because of his skin color while he was in school. In fact, the only times he felt out of place were when out-of-towners would visit Great Barrington. One such incident occurred when a white girl who was new in school refused to take one of his fake calling cards during a game. The girl told him she would not accept it because he was black. He then realized that there would always be some kind of barrier between whites and others. Young Du Bois may have been an outsider because of his status, being poor, not having a father and being extremely intellectual for his age; however, he was very comfortable academically. Many around him recognized his intelligence and encouraged him to further his education with college preparatory courses while in high school. This academic confidence led him to believe that he could use his knowledge to empower African Americans. Du Bois was awarded a degree from Fisk University in 1888. During the summer following graduation from Fisk, Du Bois managed the Fisk Glee Club. The club was employed at a grand luxury summer resort on Lake Minnetonka in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota. The resort was a favorite spot for vacationing wealthy American Southerners and European royalty. Du Bois and the other club members doubled as waiters and kitchen workers at the hotel. Observing the drinking, rude and crude behavior and sexual promiscuity of the rich white guests of the hotel left a deep impression on the young Du Bois. Du Bois entered Harvard College in the fall of 1888, having received a $250 scholarship. He earned a bachelor's degree cum laude from Harvard in 1890. In 1892, received a stipend to attend the University of Berlin. While a student in Berlin, he travelled extensively throughout Europe, and came of age intellectually while studying with some of the most prominent social scientists in the German capital, such as Gustav von Schmoller. In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After teaching at Wilberforce University in Ohio and the University of Pennsylvania, he established the department of sociology at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). Du Bois wrote many books, including three major autobiographies. Among his most significant works are The Philadelphia Negro (1899), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), John Brown (1909), Black Reconstruction (1935), and Black Folk, Then and Now (1939). His book The Negro (1915) influenced the work of several pioneer Africanist scholars, such as Drusilla Dunjee Houston and William Leo Hansberry. In 1940, at Atlanta University, Du Bois founded Phylon magazine. In 1946, he wrote The World and Africa: An Inquiry Into the Part that Africa has Played in World History. In 1945, he helped organize the historic Fifth Pan-African Conference in Manchester, England. While prominent white voices denied African American cultural, political and social relevance to American history and civic life, in his epic work, Recons.

Hardcover. First Edition. Good in dark blue cloth covered boards with gilt text on the front board and no gilt text remaining on the spine. A 12mo of 7 3/8 by 5 inches with mildew stains on the cloth of the spine and boards. the text block is shaken and the first two signatures need to be reformed as shoulders. Without a dust jacket. 349 pages including an index and text which includes a 29 page introduction, titled: "The Racial Contributions To the United States", by Edward F. McSweeney. One of the volumes in the Knights of Columbus Racial Contribution Series. A copy which would be a good candidate for rebinding.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Hardcover. First Edition. iv, 340pp+ index. Publisher's blue cloth lettered in gilt. Tidemark to textblock, large dampstain to rear. A good only copy with significant association. Housed in a custom folding case. J. Max Barber was an African American civil rights activist and educator who with Du Bois and others founded the short-lived, but influential Niagara Movement in 1905. Led by Du Bois the group was named after the location of its first meeting, which took place at Niagara Falls, and its members included prominent figures such as Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and William Monroe Trotter. A precursor to the modern Civil Rights Movement, it laid the foundation for many of the strategies and tactics used in the struggle for racial justice in the decades that followed, going against what they saw as the more conservative tactic of Booker T. Washington and his allies. Barber, later on, was editor of 'Crisis magazine and president of the NAACP Philadelphia branch from 1919 to 1921. He would also go on to become the president of the John Brown Memorial Society and continue to publish articles on racial injustice and inequality in Abbott's Monthly between 1930 and 1933. As Barber focused more on his professional dental practice later in, his involvement in social movements became less frequent, and who he isn't as widely known as one of the stars of the early civil rights movement, there's no doubt that his place was of utmost importance as any others from the time.

In 1899, W.E. Burghardt Du Bois (1868 Ð 1963) published The Philadelphia Negro, his first major study of Black life in the United States. The monumental study was the result of over eight hundred hours of interviews in 2,500 households in PhiladelphiaÕs seventh ward. Du BoisÕ work in Philadelphia Òprefigured much of the politically engaged scholarship that Du Bois pursued in the years that followed andÉreflected the two main strands of his intellectual engagement during this formative period: the scientific study of the so-called Negro Problem and the appropriate political responses to it,Ó (ANB). After completing the Philadelphia study and a study of southern Black life in Farmville, Virginia, Du Bois began teaching sociology and directing research at Atlanta University. He published the hugely influential collection of essays The Souls of Black Folk (1903) while at Atlanta, which brought Du Bois to the forefront of revolutionary Black scholarship in the United States. In 1910, Du Bois left Atlanta to join the NAACP as an officer, its only Black board member, and to edit its monthly magazine, theÊCrisis. By the publication of the present work, Du Bois was enmeshed in the study of Pan-Africanism, Marxism, and the colonization of Africa, and had begun to publish more radical contributions in the Crisis. Octavo. 349 pp. PublisherÕs blue cloth titled in gilt. Binding is bright and attractive aside from some slight darkening to spine and minor rubbing to corners. Minor marginal toning. A fresh, near-fine copy of a historical work that detailed the contributions of Black people to the United States from the first colonies to the present. First edition. Part of the Knights of Columbus Racial Contribution Series. The present work marks the midpoint of Du BoisÕ career as a sociologist, historian, and activist. It is a precursor to Du BoisÕ most important historical work, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, which he published in 1935. The Gift of Black Folk also includes a lengthy chapter on Black soldiers, which reflects Du BoisÕ advocacy during World War I. He fought for officer training for Black soldiers, and, in 1919, launched an NAACP investigation into charges of discrimination against Black troops in Europe. Another chapter, ÒThe Freedom of Womanhood,Ó explores Òhow the black woman from her low estate not only united two great human races but helped lift herself and all women to economic independence and self expression,Ó (p. 259). The present work both reflects Du BoisÕ early-career sociological studies of Black American life and anticipates his major historical works, including Black Reconstruction in America as well as The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World HistoryÊ(1947). See American National Biography.

Hardcover. First Edition. Near fine in dark blue cloth covered boards with bright, gilt text on the spine and on the front board with embossed borders in blind on the front board. A 12mo of 7 3/8 by 5 inches with only hints of rubbing to the cloth at the head and heel of the spine and with a prior owner's name written at the upper edge of the first free end page. Without a dust jacket. 349 pages including an index and text which includes a 29 page introduction, titled: "The Racial Contributions To the United States", by Edward F. McSweeney. One of the volumes in the Knights of Columbus Racial Contribution Series.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. First edition. Small octavo. Blue cloth gilt. Spine lettering dull, faint tidemark on the foredge and in the bottom margins of the pages, very good lacking the rare dust jacket. Artist Meta Warrick Fuller and her husband Dr. Solomon Fuller's copy with contemporary ink inscription very likely in the hand of Meta Warrick Fuller: "Dr. & Mrs. S. C. Fuller. Warren Road, Framingham, Mass." Meta Warrick Fuller and her husband Dr. Fuller, were friends of Du Bois and they are mentioned by him in this book, as African-Americans who have contributed to "the Making of America" (p. 315-316). In addition to the ink ownership inscription of the Fuller's on the front pastedown, the book also has a few pencil scorings in the text in Meta's hand. Meta Warrick was a sculptor, "one of the most important precursors of the Harlem Renaissance" [Driskell, *Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black America,* , p. 25]. She trained at the Pennsylvania Museum and School for Industrial Arts, and studied with Rodin in Paris, who proclaimed her "a born sculptor." Benjamin Brawley described her as one of the first artists to explore "the tragedy of the Negro race in the New World" [Driskell, p. 27]. She is considered by some to be the first African-American woman professional artist, and in 1907 she was the first African-American woman to receive a Federal commission for her art. "By the early 1920's Fuller had become one of the preeminent black artists of her time. As her principle advocate and close family friend, Du Bois sought out Fuller for the "America's Making Exposition." Her meeting with Du Bois is thought to have brought about a turning point in her career, by encouraging her to incorporate more African and African-American themes into her art. Du Bois commissioned her to do a piece to mark the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which led to her most famous sculpture, "Ethiopia Awakening." Her husband, Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller was the first recognized African-American psychiatrist. An important association copy of one of Du Bois's scarcest books, which was issued as a title in the Knights of Columbus Racial Contribution Series.