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The Souls Of Black Folk

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W.E.B DuBois wrote the book titled The Souls of Black Folk in 1903 as a response to the condition of black people in America. The book predates the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, but can be viewed as a precursor to the New Negro Movement. Prior to 1903, blacks lived primarily in the South, but by the 1920s the black population in New York City rose by 115 percent. The movement of blacks from the South to the North occurred for various reasons; discontent with life in the Jim Crow South, widespread violence against blacks and the opportunity for jobs in the North due to WWI. The Souls of Black Folk is the written anthem for the Harlem Renaissance; the book voices the condition of blacks in 1903 and aims to celebrate African-American culture, to strive for equality and break with the philosophy of Booker T. Washington. DuBois was born in Massachusetts in 1868 and was educated at prestigious institutions like Fisk and Harvard. DuBois was an intellectual black Northerner who had had many opportunities, but was far removed from the condition of blacks in the South. Yet his teaching positions at rural schools in Tennessee and Southern black colleges would have given him an understanding of black life in the South and would have inspired him to write The Souls of Black Folk. Through his experiences in the South, DuBois obtained a clearer picture of where blacks stood in society. DuBois was part of the older generation of prominent African Americans that became the inspiration for

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