Morals and Manners Among Negro Americans

"The recent spate of monographs on and reprints of Du Bois's sociological discourse leaves little room to doubt his pioneering contributions to the development of a distinctly `American' sociology. Robert A. Wortham's reprint of Morals and Manners demonstrates that the innovative empirical sociology of religion Du Bois inaugurated in his 1903 classic, The Negro Church, was endeavored again a decade later. Even the most discerning scholars of Du Bois's sociology will marvel at Wortham's meticulous introduction, which cogently situates Du Bois's `scientific sociology' within the emerging world of sociology at the turn of the twentieth century. In short, Wortham's work here is nothing less than brilliant, as it promises to bring Du Bois's sociological discourse to an even wider audience. This volume symbolizes not simply a much-needed reprint but, even more, a long-awaited revival!"---Reiland Rabaka, author of W. E. B. Du Bois and the Problems of the Twenty-First Century; Du Bois's Dialectics; and Against Epistemic Apartheid: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology

"W. E. B. Du Bois and his colleagues broke so much new ground with their Atlanta University Studies that scholars are still harvesting. We have Robert Wortham to thank for reminding us of Du Bois's many contributions to sociology and the study of culture and religion."---Edward J. Blum, San Diego State University

Morals and Manners among Negro Americans is the sequel to W. E. B. Du Bois's The Negro Church. This 1914 study is the last Atlanta University Conference volume to be edited or coedited by Du Bois and is based on a national survey addressing the then-current state of morals and manners within the African American community. A case study of the Black Church in Atlanta and an extensive discussion of crime are also included. The national survey addressed such topics as good manners, sound morals, habits of cleanliness, personal honesty, home life, rearing of children, activities for young people, the care of the elderly, church ministries, and an evaluation of recent progress. While the original conference volume included actual lists of the evaluators' responses by topic and classified by state, the data were not analyzed. This reissue of the classic sociological study includes an extensive introduction based on Robert A. Wortham's content analysis of the survey responses. The results of this analysis are presented in tabular form and discussed, and a statistical appendix summarizing the raw data for each topic by state is provided. This new edition presents readers with an opportunity to evaluate general and regional trends in the evaluators' perception of the state of morals and manners within the African American community at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Robert A. Wortham is professor in the Department of Sociology at North Carolina Central University.