W. E. Burghardt Du Bois – författare

Morals and Manners among Negro Americans is the sequel to W.E.B. Du Bois' The Negro Church. This 1914 study is the last Atlanta University Conference volume to be edited or coedited by Du Bois and is based on a national survey addressing the then current state of morals and manners within the African American community. A case study of the Black Church in Atlanta and an extensive discussion of crime are included also. The national survey addressed such topics as good manners, sound morals, habits of cleanliness, personal honesty, home life, rearing of children, activities for young people, the care of the elderly, church ministries, and an evaluation of recent progress. While the original conference volume included actual lists of the evaluators' responses by topic and classified by state, the data were not analyzed. This reissue of the classic sociological study includes an extensive introduction based on Robert Wortham's content analysis of the survey responses. The results of this analysis are presented in tabular form and discussed, and a statistical appendix summarizing the raw data for each topic by state is provided. This new edition presents readers with an opportunity to evaluate general and regional trends in the evaluators' perception of the state of morals and manners within the African American community at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The Souls of Black Folk is W.E.B. Du Bois' most famous work. While the work is often viewed as a classic in African American literature and the history of the African American experience, the sociological significance of the work has been understated. In his initial discussions with the book's original publisher, Du Bois desired to prepare a volume that would showcase his ongoing sociological work on "the Negro problems." While many editions of Du Bois' classic text have appeared, no edition has focused primarily on the eight previously published essays in their original form and chronological order. This fact alone makes The Sociological Souls of Black Folk unique. An introductory essay by the volume's editor, Robert Wortham, highlights the sociological significance of the original essays by addressing such themes as the concept of the self, the social construction of the African American experience, and racial inequality. Eight additional essays originally published between 1897 and 1900 are added by the editor in a second section. These additional sociological essays focus on African American entrepreneurship, crime, race relations, liberal arts education, the Black Church's function within the African American community, and the quality of African American life in the Southern Black Belt. The essays included in The Sociological Souls of Black Folk provide the reader with an opportunity to gain a greater appreciation for Du Bois' early sociological work and recognize that Du Bois was indeed one of the pioneering figures in the development of sociology in the United States.