Saving the Race: Conversations on Du Bois from a Collective Memoir of Souls

by Rebecca Carroll

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W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk is one of the most influential books ever published in this country. In it, Du Bois wrote that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” a prophecy that is as fresh and poignant today as when it first appeared in print in 1903. Now, one hundred years after The Souls of Black Folk was first published, Saving the Race reexamines the legacy of Du Bois and his “color line” prophecy from a modern viewpoint. The author, Rebecca Carroll, a biracial woman who was reared by white parents, not only provides her own personal perspective, but she invites eighteen well-known African Americans to share their ideas and opinions about what Du Bois's classic text means today.

Lalita Tademy, author

Stanley Crouch, cultural critic, novelist

A’Lelia Bundles, great-great-granddaughter of Madame C.J. Walker, author

David Graham Du Bois, stepson of W.E.B. Du Bois, writer, teacher, activist

Touré, novelist, contributing writer for Rolling Stone magazine

Julian Bond, chairman of the board, NAACP

Thelma Golden, chief curator and deputy director for exhibitions and programs at the Studio Museum of Harlem

Kathleen Cleaver, former communications secretary of the Black Panther party

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., civil rights leader and lawyer

Cory Booker, former New Jersey councilman, mayoral candidate, activist

Jewell Jackson McCabe, founder and president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women

Derrick Bell, professor of law, New York University

Elizabeth Alexander, poet and writer

Clarence Major, author, poet, artist

Terence Blanchard, horn player, film composer

Reverend Dr. James Forbes, senior minister of Riverside Church, New York

Patricia Smith, poet

LeAlan Jones, author

The result is an insightful and illuminating collection of interviews both provocative and inspiring. Saving the Race paints a fascinating, complicated, and colorful portrait about the “souls of black folk” in twenty-first century America.

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Average Customer Review: 4 out of 5 stars

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4 out of 5 stars

A twenty-first century perspective on The Souls of Black Fol, 2004-09-07
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is perhaps one of the most influential African-Americans in history. Before there was a Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X, Du Bois was a voice and conscience of a people. An intellectual, scholar and activist, Du Bois' fight for equality spanned from the era of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement. His philosophy and insight into the plight of African-Americans still reigns true and valuable today. In SAVING THE RACE: CONVERSATIONS ON DU BOIS FROM A COLLECTIVE MEMOIR OF SOULS author Rebecca Carroll gathers eighteen well-known and influential African-Americans such as: Julian Bond, A'Leila Bundles, Lalita Tademy, Toure, and Jewell Jackson McCabe to discuss their perspective on Du Bois and his most famous and studied work The Souls of Black Folk.
In candid essays, each of the eighteen people, whose accomplishments range from writer to politicians, discuss their thoughts on Du Bois's work, ideology and accomplishments. They revisit issues raised in The Souls of Black Folk such as race, classism, injustices and hope. Each person reveals how the concerns raised by Du Bois nearly a century ago are still relevant today to African-Americans as a community and within their own personal lives. Rebecca Carroll also peppers the book with her personal struggles of coming to terms with being Black in America, for she was a bi-racial child raised by a White family in rural New Hampshire. At times isolated and unsure of her identity, Du Bois was one of Carroll's first and most influential personal testament to the trials and tribulations of African-Americans.

I thoroughly enjoyed the testimony by the many well known African-Americans. Looking at The Souls of Black Folks from a modern perspective was refreshing and inspiring. The essays were revealing and thought provoking. Although the old adage "The more things change the more they stay the same," reigns true in many instances, the accomplishments, hope, dignity and pride that African-Americans have managed to hang on to in the face of enormous obstacles is nothing short of a miracle.

Reviewed by L. Raven James
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

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