W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

This monumental biography--eight years in the research and writing--treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.
David Levering Lewis is the Martin Luther King Jr., University Professor in the history department at Rutgers University. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Educated at Fisk and Columbia universities and the London School of Economics and Political Science, Professor Lewis is the author of several acclaimed books, including King: A Biography, When Harlem Was in Vogue, The Race to Fashoda, and his two-volume Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of W.E.B. Du Bois. He and his wife live in Manhattan.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
A National Book Award Finalist

With the follow-up to his Pulitzer prize-winning first volume, David Levering Lewis has garnered critical praise from all sides, a National Book Award nomination, and a Pulitzer Prize. This second volume begins with the triumphal return from World War I of African American veterans to the shattering reality of racism and lynching even as America discovers the New Negro of literature and art. In stunning detail, Lewis chronicles the little-known political agenda behind the Harlem Renaissance and Du Bois's relentless fight for equality and justice, including his steadfast refusal to allow whites to interpret the aspirations of black America. Seared by the rejection of terrified liberals and the black bourgeoisie during the Communist witch-hunts, Du Bois ended his days in uncompromising exile in newly independent Ghana. In recreating the turbulent times in which he lived and fought, Lewis restores the inspiring and famed Du Bois to his central place in American history. As George M. Fredrickson declared in the New York Review of Books, "Lewis's two volumes make up one of the finest biographies that this country has produced."
"A masterpiece of the biographer's craft. With this volume, David Levering Lewis has brought to magnificent completion his definitive biography of W.E.B. Du Bois. Lewis writes with consistent empathy, balance, and grace about one of the twentieth century's most complicated and controversial figures. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the tortured history of race relations in the modern world."—David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize
"Splendid . . . A landmark of American scholarship. Lewis develops the most convincing portrayal ever written of Du Bois."—Michael R. Winston, The Washington Post

"Monumental . . . A joy to read. A work of keen scholarship that will appeal to the general reader responsive to graceful, lucid prose by an author with an eye for ironic situations and complex emotions."—John Patrick Diggins, Los Angeles Times

"A stirring yet subtle portrait of a haughty intellectual colossus. Lewis again brings Du Bois to life with startling detail and judicious frankness."—Jack E. White, Time

"This second volume of Lewis's biography of Du Bois will undoubtedly become an instant classic and indispensable reading for anyone interested in the history of the twentieth century. The result of Lewis's prodigious research efforts is a magnificent reconstruction of the evolving contours of Du Bois's thought, his interactions with a host of black organizations and key political and intellectual figures, and his personal life."—Eric Amesen, Chicago Tribune

"I did not think it was possible for David Lewis to surpass what he had accomplished in the first volume of his Du Bois biography, but he has . . . He confirms the view of many of us who believe that he is the finest American historian plying his craft today."—John Hope Franklin, James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus at Duke University

"A masterpiece of the biographer's craft. With this volume, David Levering Lewis has brought to magnificent completion his definitive biography of W.E.B. Du Bois. Lewis writes with consistent empathy, balance, and grace about one of the twentieth century's most complicated and controversial figures. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the tortured history of race relations in the modern world."—David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and author of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize

"Lewis's two volumes make up one of the finest biographies that this country has produced."—George M. Fredrickson, The New York Review of Books

"Until the publication of this superb new book, Du Bois's life had never received the treatment it deserves."—The Nation

"In the opening pages of the second and final volume of Lewis' masterful biography of the great African American scholar, intellectual, writer, and leader, World War I has ended and Du Bois, at age 52, is hard at work as the distinguished founding editor of the vastly influential journal of opinion, The Crisis, which, as Lewis reminds the reader, had made Du Bois' name familiar in nearly every black household in the country. Furthermore, as most people believed at the time, both black and white, Du Bois was the NAACP. But just like earlier clashes with Booker T. Washington over their differing philosophies of black advancement, Du Bois now stood in conflict with Marcus Garvey, the back-to-Africa proponent. As for himself, Du Bois' international involvement in black issues took the form of participation in the Pan-African movement, which espoused the solidarity of all black people everywhere. As the reader witnesses, Du Bois didn't become any less inflexible in his principles and opinions as he got older. One of the most informative aspects of Lewis' highly perceptive account of this, the second half of Du Bois' life, is his discussion of Du Bois' reactions to and participation in the Harlem Renaissance, the black arts movement centered in Harlem from the 1920s to the 1940s. As time passed, Du Bois became a 'walking institution,' but he also gravitated toward communism, officially joining the Communist Party late in his life—in fact, on his way to spend his last days away from the U.S. in the African country of Ghana. Lewis does not neglect his subject's personal life, and the result is a well-rounded picture of an extremely consequential figure."—Brad Hooper, Booklist