Historical Analysis of Du Bois's Biography: Strengths and Weaknesses

This report provides an in-depth analysis of David Levering Lewis's biography of W.E.B. Du Bois, focusing on its strengths and weaknesses. The analysis highlights Lewis's ability to portray Du Bois's life, including his contributions as a historian, sociologist, and civil rights leader. The report examines Lewis's handling of Du Bois's personal life, his experiences with racism, and his impact on the civil rights movement. It also evaluates the organizational structure, writing style, and the use of primary sources in the biography. The report references reviews of the biography and provides a critical assessment of Lewis's work, emphasizing the significance of Du Bois's contributions to societal transformation and his struggles against oppression. The report concludes by summarizing the key points and offering an overall evaluation of Lewis's biography.

Running head: ANALYSIS ON DU BOIS’S BIOGRAPHY
ANALYSIS ON DU BOIS’S BIOGRAPHY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ANALYSIS ON DU BOIS’S BIOGRAPHY
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is recognized as the master historian, polemist
and sociologist. There was a time when the conditions, the men and the wave of intellectual
tradition was identified through Du Bois’s work of history, sociology. He was identified to be
the first American intellectuals to mark the nexus of class, race and gender oppression. David
Levering Lewis's biography is the most cogent and comprehensive of the eight English-
language studies of Du Bois1. The paper focuses on in depth analysis of the strengths and
weaknesses of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography 1868-1963 by David Levering Lewis.
Davis Levering Lewis brings out in depth picture of the real life of Du Bois what
people hardly knows about. Through the biography of Du Bois, impressive qualities are
witnessed, especially through his leadership that he showed in the face of post-
Reconstruction Jim Crow racism. Lewis never shies away from Du Bois’s foibles and failures
as a human being but what Du Bois achieved in his lifetime is unforgettable and engraved the
realistic record for the contemporary civil rights movement. Lewis takes a massive amount of
material and puts it on record skillfully in order to present it to the reader provided with
simplicity in the language. The writing skills of Lewis are a major reason in being able to
convey the facts to the readers successfully. Chapters are well-organized, transitions are
stylistically blended and the prose is fluid and easy to follow. Lewis brings to light what Du
Bois experienced with throughout his entire life, for instance, the number and reality of
lynchings by groups of women, men and children done to other group of people who were
involved in certain cases like public display of body parts and burning of bodies. The effects
of racism and the hatred are magnified in this book through the reporting by Lewis. It is
regarding of what happened in post-Reconstruction Jim Crow America and what Du Bois
1 Taylor, Quintard. "The Scholar-Activist and the Challenge of Social Change: WEB Du Bois and Race in
America." (1994): 662-667.

2ANALYSIS ON DU BOIS’S BIOGRAPHY
was so vehemently fighting against. As known to most of the people, Du Bois has been in
diversified field with interest. He was trained as a historian and sociologist and was the first
African-American to get a doctorate from Harvard. In addition, it was noticed that he was
identified to be one of the founders of the NAACP. Du Bois was even victimized to the class
snobbery and racial exclusiveness that allowed Harvard and most nineteenth-century
universities, creating in him a highly attuned defensiveness against perceived white
condescension that for the remainder of his life stood as a barrier to close interracial
friendships. Through the writings of Lewis, Du Bois’s life experiences take the reader
through the experience of African-Americanism ranging from the last third of the 19th
century through the first half of the 20th century 2. Du Bois’s work is recognized through
histories like histories like The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of
America, 1683-1870 (1896), sociological studies like The Philadelphia Negro: A Social
Study (1899), and what Lewis rightly calls the epochal study, The Souls of Black Folk:
Essays and Sketches (1903). The biography by Lewis puts forward the emphasis on the
relevance of Du Bois’s words through the course of societal transformation is indeed a
notable and prominent instance towards destruction of oppression, constitutional assault,
violence of ideas, the rupture of deference and the insurgency of the attitudes. It is evident
that along with success, he has experienced the face of denial and failure 3. Though he was
given excess importance of self congratulatory, yet it is also evident that his shifting views of
powerful white philanthropists regarding the potentialities and capabilities for black
assimilation figured prominently into his one academic failure, the denial of a doctorate from
the University of Berlin.
2 Lewis, David L. WEB Du Bois: A Biography. Macmillan, 2009.
3 Taylor, Quintard. "The Scholar-Activist and the Challenge of Social Change: WEB Du Bois and Race in
America." (1994): 662-667.

3ANALYSIS ON DU BOIS’S BIOGRAPHY
From the above discussion, analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of W.E.B. Du
Bois: A Biography 1868-1963 by David Levering Lewis has been discussed. The structure of
the paper is sketched out through the thesis statement. The analysis focuses on the biographty
of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois and his works acknowledged by David Levering
Lewis, the author who viewed Du Bois life experiences and his efforts towards the societal
transformation through his writings.

4ANALYSIS ON DU BOIS’S BIOGRAPHY
References:
Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the
United States of America (The Oxford WEB Du Bois). Oxford University Press, 2014.
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. "The conservation of races." (2015).
Lewis, David L. WEB Du Bois: A Biography. Macmillan, 2009.
Lewis, David Levering. WEB Du Bois: A Biography 1868-1963. Henry Holt and Company,
2009.
Marable, Manning. "Reconstructing the Radical Du Bois." Souls 7, no. 3-4 (2005): 1-25.
Taylor, Quintard. "The Scholar-Activist and the Challenge of Social Change: WEB Du Bois
and Race in America." (1994): 662-667.