W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits

Description

The colorful charts, graphs, and maps presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition by famed sociologist and black rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois offered a view into the lives of Black Americans, conveying a literal and figurative representation of "the color line." From advances in education to the lingering effects of slavery, these prophetic infographics--beautiful in design and powerful in content--make visible a wide spectrum of Black experience.

W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits collects the complete set of graphics in full color for the first time, making their insights and innovations available to a contemporary imagination. As Maria Popova wrote, these data portraits shaped how "Du Bois himself thought about sociology, informing the ideas with which he set the world ablaze three years later in The Souls of Black Folk."Includes contributions from Aldon Morris, Silas Munro, and Mabel O. Wilson.

Whitney Battle-Baptiste is the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center atUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst and an associate professor in theDepartment of Anthropology. She is the author of Black Feminist Archaeology .

Editorial Reviews

Smithsonian Magazine

W.E.B. Du Bois' Visionary Infographics Come Together for the First Time in Full Color

Communication Arts

The book is appropriately written by five contributors, each with their own distinct professional insight and perspective. Section by section, it unravels the steadfastness and creativity that was necessary to birth the American Negro Exhibit.