The work of WEB Du Bois, published in 1899 and knowingly neglected in USA by a sociological tradition structured in racist institutions, is finally recognized at its true value: a considerable monograph with crucial and very current political issues. The historian Nicolas Martin-Breteau provided the translation and presentation of the book.
Shooting and editing: A. Suhamy.
William EB From Wood: Philadelphia Blacks: A Social Studyedited and translated by Nicolas Martin-Breteau. La découverte, 2019. 550 p., €27.
First published in 1899, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study is the result of research commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania at William EB Du Bois, then twenty-eight years old. Associated with the young white researcher Isabel Eaton, Du Bois delivers a masterful analysis of the racial question at a time when the oppression of black Americans has never been so violent since the abolition of slavery in 1865.
In this urban sociology investigation detailing the formation of what would become Philadelphia’s black ghetto, Du Bois deploys all his talents as a sociologist, but also as a historian and ethnologist. Seeking to describe and explain the economic, political and cultural structures in which the city’s black population lived, he undertook a methodical work of collecting a vast set of quantitative and qualitative data. His goal: to propose a sociological counter-fire to the dominant explanations of racial inequality then based on the supposedly “natural” inferiority of African-Americans.
If Philadelphia Blacks is today considered a founding text of the social sciences, it is also a book of political combat in favor of the emancipation of the black minority in the United States. By revealing its real living conditions, Du Bois opposes black dignity to racial prejudices in order to found American democracy on justice.
Questions asked:
– Who was Du Bois?
– How does Du Bois denaturalize the black problem?
– What interactions does he establish between racial prejudice and social inequalities?
– What are the hazards of Du Bois’ posterity?