William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Darkwater

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In

Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil

(1920), W.E.B. Du Bois presented a variety of his essays and short fiction on race, class, and gender topics. Some pieces were knife-edged and audacious as befits the book’s intention to challenge prevailing views on social issues. He mixed previously published works and new pieces as he did in

The Souls of Black Folk

(1903).

Darkwater

shared other similarities with the earlier book. Notably Du Bois continued to explore and promote African American agency – i.e., the capacity of persons of colour to actively and consciously guide their own destinies – and to advocate voting rights and the end of Jim-Crow segregation. Also as in

Souls

, Du Bois examined the historical factors constraining the progress of African Americans and he employed the…

4870 words

Citation: Williams, Robert W.. "Darkwater". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 September 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5758, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5758 Darkwater 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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