If you’re new to Restless Reads, our virtual classics book club, July is a good month to jump in: we’re reading The Souls of Black Folk, an indispensable study of race in America. Published forty years after Emancipation, it has parts that feel as if they could have been written yesterday. “In perhaps the most-chilling connection to the current political and racial moment,” observes Vann Newkirk II, “Du Bois details the foundation of policing as one not of law and order, but of control of black bodies.” Newkirk wrote that in his intro to our 2017 edition. Du Bois diagnosed what ails us in 1903 and in 2020, the diagnosis hasn’t changed. We invite you to read and learn with us.
Here’s how to join us:
© Steve Prince, from the Restless Classics edition of The Souls of Black Folk.
Get your copy of The Souls of Black Folk. Our edition has beautiful illustrations by Steve Prince and a scorching introduction by Vann R. Newkirk II. Find it here on Bookshop, which is a great place to buy books these days—they give over 75% of their profit margin directly to independent bookstores. You can also find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google, Kobo, Nook, your local bookstore, or your local library.
2. You’ll have three opportunities to meet with us via Google Meet and discuss The Souls of Black Folk. Drop into any of these sessions throughout the month of July:
Wednesday, July 1 at 11 am
Co-presented by the Bronx Library Center
Facilitated by Irisdelia Garcia
Please register through the New York Public Library’s website here; a link to the event will be sent via email a day in advance. You don’t need to be a patron of the NYPL to register.
Wednesday, July 8 at 4 pm
Co-presented by the Battery Park City Library
Facilitated by Irisdelia Garcia
Please register through the New York Public Library’s website here; a link to the event will be sent via email a day in advance. You don’t need to be a patron of the NYPL to register.
Thursday, July 23 at 8 pm
Co-presented by the Mid-Manhattan Library (NYPL) and the Jones Library (Amherst)
Facilitated by Ilan Stavans
Please register through the New York Public Library’s website here; a link to the event will be sent via email a day in advance. You don’t need to be a patron of the NYPL to register.
About the Facilitators
Irisdelia Garcia (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer from The Bronx, NYC. She is currently part of the EMERGENYC 2020 cohort through The Hemispheric Institute at NYU. Irisdelia is a collaborating artist with Ping Chong + Company, having completed the Generation NYZ Creative Fellowship with them and has moved on to contribute work for the company, having just showcased new work for their Nocturne Remix 2020 anthology. Her art and writing centers Puerto Rican history, ideas of embodiment and gender, and the repercussions of colonialism. Irisdelia holds a bachelors in English with a concentration in Digital Humanities from Amherst College and a certificate in Multicultural Theater from the Five College Consortium.
Ilan Stavans is the Publisher of Restless Books and the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic’s Journey. He has edited The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, among dozens of other volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans’s work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen. A cofounder of the Great Books Summer Program at Amherst, Stanford, Chicago, Oxford, and Dublin, he is the host of the NPR podcast "In Contrast.”
About the Book
About the Author
William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (1868 – 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil-rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for independence of African colonies from European powers. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), was a seminal work in African-American literature. The United States' Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which Du Bois had campaigned his entire life, was enacted a year after his death.
About the Introducer
© Ann Summa
Vann R. Newkirk II is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics and policy. Vann is also a co-founder of and contributing editor for Seven Scribes, a website and community dedicated to promoting young writers and artists of color. In his work, Vann has covered health policy and civil rights, voting rights in Virginia, environmental justice, and the confluence of race and class in American politics throughout history, and the evolution of black identity. He is also an aspiring science-fiction writer, butterfly lover, gardener, gamer, and amateur astrophysicist. Vann lives in Hyattsville, MD with his wife Kerone.
About the Illustrator
Steve Prince is an artist, educator, and art evangelist. He is a native of New Orleans, and the rhythms of the city's art, music, and religion pulsate through his work. Steve's favorite medium is linoleum cut printmaking. Through his complex compositions and rich visual vocabulary, Steve creates powerful narrative images that express his unique vision founded in hope, faith, and creativity.
By W. E. B. Du Bois
Introduction by Vann R. Newkirk II
Illustrations by Steve Prince
Featured in Essence Magazine
Restless Classics
Restless Classics presents The Souls of Black Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois’s seminal work of sociology, with searing insights into our complex, corrosive relationship with race and the African-American consciousness. Reconsidered for the era of Obama, Trump, and Black Lives Matter, the new edition includes an incisive introduction from rising cultural critic Vann R. Newkirk II and stunning illustrations by the artist Steve Prince.
Paperback • ISBN: 9781632060976
Publication date: Feb 14, 2017