Black Reconstruction An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880

"What Professor Du Bois offers us, in other words, is an interpretation of reconstruction based upon the assumption of inherent race equality, shot through with Marxian economics and hope of proletarian rule, and inseparably connected with the world-wide exploitation of race and color....One puts down this extraordinary book with mixed feelings. Of the Negro's part in reconstruction it is beyond question the most painstaking and thorough study ever made. There is no need to accept the author's views about racial equality in order to recognize the imposing contribution which he has made to a critical period of American history, nor need one be a Marxian to perceive that, in treating the Negro experience as a part of the American labor movement in general, he has given that movement an orientation very different from what it has commonly had."
Yet there runs through the book a note of challenge which seems to point, in the author's mind at least, to the imminence of an inescapable and deadly racial struggle. "There can be no compromise," writes Professor Du Bois, in the fight for absolute equality, for "this is the last great battle of the West." Such words can be dismissed as those of emotion or fantasy if they spring only from long brooding over discrimination, suffering and defeat, but they have a graver import if, as appears to be the case, they represent the mature conviction and hope of a scholar and writer who is widely regarded as one of the foremost intellectuals of his race.Du Bois, W. E. B. is the author of 'Black Reconstruction An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880' with ISBN 9780268021658 and ISBN 0268021651.