The Souls of Black Folk

A Penguin Vitae Edition

When The Souls of Black Folk was first published in 1903, it had a galvanizing effect on the conversation about race in America–and it remains both a touchstone in the literature of African America and a beacon in the fight for civil rights. Believing that one can know the “soul” of a race by knowing the souls of individuals, W. E. B. Du Bois combines history and stirring autobiography to reflect on the magnitude of American racism and to chart a path forward against oppression, and introduces the now-famous concepts of the color line, the veil, and double-consciousness.

Penguin Vitae–loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life”–is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

About the Contributors

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. A sociologist, historian, poet, and writer of several novels, Du Bois was one of the main founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He was a lifelong critic of American society and an advocate of black people against racial injustice. He spent his last years in Ghana, where he died in exile at the age of ninety-five.

Ibram X. Kendi (introduction) is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. A contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News correspondent, he is a coeditor, with Keisha N. Blain, of the #1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls and the author of many other books, including The Black Campus Movement, which won the W. E. B. Du Bois Book Prize; Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction; and three #1 New York Times bestsellers: How to Be an Antiracist; Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored with Jason Reynolds; and Antiracist Baby, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky. A MacArthur Fellow and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Kendi lives in Boston, Massachusetts.