UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

Book Jacket: "The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois," edited by H. Aptheker

Edited by Herbert Aptheker
In three volumes

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. A long time friend and colleague of Du Bois, Aptheker is a well-known historian of the African American experience. In 1939 and again in 1969, he won the history award given by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Among his most prominent works are American Negro Slave Revolts and the three-volume Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States.

"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

Selections, 1877-1934

"It is a volume worth waiting for. Covering the years 1877 to 1934, the correspondence deals with every major issue concerning black Americans during these crucial years. . . . The University of Massachusetts Press is to be congratulated for the handsome, well-illustrated publication and the care with which the work has been prepared."

Choice

American History / Black Studies
510 pp., 32 illustrations
LC 72-90496
$45.00s cloth, ISBN 0-87023-131-6
$27.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-103-1
1973 cloth, 1997 paper
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Volume II
Selections, 1934-1944

"This is an immensely valuable contribution to the literature. It is intelligently laid out with a helpful chronological and subject table of contents and the material itself is of crucial importance. The range of subjects with which Du Bois deals is immense and his honesty, integrity, and politics shine through this correspondence. He deals presciently with the problems of the post-World War II world, with the ruling class's interests, and with the range of struggles being waged and to be waged."

Sage Race Relations Abstracts

American History / Black Studies
512 pp., 19 illustrations
LC 72-90496
$45.00s cloth, ISBN 0-87023-132-4
$27.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-104-X
1976 cloth, 1997 paper
To order the paperback edition online, click on the shopping cart
To order either edition by mail or fax, click here for an order form

Selections, 1944-1963

"It is a remarkable fact that this volume brings to completion the first collection 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.

American History / Black Studies
512 pp., 15 illustrations
LC 72-90496
$45.00s cloth, ISBN 0-87023-133-2
$27.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-105-8
1978 cloth, 1997 paper
To order the paperback edition online, click on the shopping cart
To order either edition by mail or fax, click here for an order form

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