America is Reading DuBois

‘Black Reconstruction’ is in vogue & a must-read

W.E.B. DuBois, by James Edward Purdy — This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a29260. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. (Public Domain License)

“How the facts of American history have in the last half-century have been falsified because the nation was ashamed. The South was ashamed because it fought to perpetuate human slavery. The North was ashamed because it had to call in the black men to save the Union, abolish slavery, and establish democracy.” — W.E.B. DuBois

For the last few weeks, I have been listening to a podcast called Marx Madness. While the podcast is devoted to Marxist interpretations of history and politics, the podcast recently devoted multiple episodes to W.E.B. DuBois’ singular classic, Black Reconstruction in America commonly called Black Reconstruction.

In addition, a book club sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America has as its next discussion book, Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois. There are other mentions of the book everywhere now. In fact, Google “Black Reconstruction, Dubois,” and you will get 2.6 million hits.

In the era of book banning of books like Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Black Boy by Richard Wright, the banning books crowd…