Of the Dawn of Freedom
'It is the aim of this essay to study the period of history from 1861 to 1872 so far
as it relates to the American Negro. In effect, this tale of the dawn of Freedom is an
account of that government of men called the Freedmen's Bureau, -- one of the most
singular and interesting of the attempts made by a great nation to grapple with vast
problems of race and social condition.'
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we
see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution.
They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and
destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals
and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in 1868 in Great Barrington,
Massachusetts. A brilliant student and natural leader, he experienced little prejudice
during his early years; it was while attending Fisk, a Southern university for Negroes,
that the young Du Bois first fully awoke to the realities of race in America. His response
was to make the cause of the black people his own.
After graduation from Fisk, he earned his Ph.D. from Harvard, studied in Berlin, and
become one of the great pioneer sociologists. In 1903, The Souls of Black Folk appeared.
This prophetic masterpiece was but the beginning of a long, often lonely crusade that saw
Du Bois forced into an increasingly radical position in his search for a solution to the
American racial dilemma. His final years were marked by disillusionment with his native
land, renunciation of his citizenship, and final self-exile in Ghana, where he died in
1963 at the age of ninety-five.
96 pages, Paperback