Reading Du Bois: An Afrocentric Critique of the Color Line

Offering a vision both hopeful and thoughtful, Reading Du Bois is an Afrocentric reexamination of the work of one of the most important intellectuals of our time.

Du Bois wanted to solve the issue of race dividing American society. Aaron X. Smith and Molefi Kete Asante take one of Du Bois’s key concepts, the idea that the problem of his century was going to be the color line, and demonstrate that such a reader of that concept provides fresh insights into our present interpersonal and political situation. The application of Du Bois’s concepts, such as the color line, reveals that the subject place of African American people is not merely a marginal space but rather a central space to all who seek to bring justice, democracy, and optimism.