Arnold Rampersad is a biographer, literary critic, and academic, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the US in 1965. The first volume (1986) of his Life of Langston Hughes was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and his Ralph Ellison: A Biography was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award.
Rampersad is currently Professor of English and the Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. He was Senior Associate Dean for the Humanities from January 2004 to August 2006.
W.E.B Dubois was a towering intellect whose criticisms and observations about race, politics and economics in the United States were well ahead of their time. In this biography of Dubois, Arnold Rampersad, uses the writings, of which there are volumes, to outline the life and thought of this amazing man. While I had read three of Dubois' works (Soul of Black Folk, The Philadelphia Negro, and Darkwater), and knew the general outlines of his life, this book provided a richness of this complex and brilliant man. He was in many ways a living paradox: a northern black who discovered racism when he went South to college, a humble man whose personality often came off as arrogant, a brilliant scholar who was unappreciated because of racial prejudice, a loyal American who eventually was driven out by his allegiance to socialism, a man committed to racial justice largely rejected by member of race for his critique of capitalism, and founder of the NAACP twice fired for his radical views.
One of the nice things about this book is that nearly each chapter provides an overview of some of Dubois' writings, so that you come away with some awareness of the breadth and depth of his thinking. Even more impressive is the fact in his late 80's Dubois wrote the Black Flame Trilogy, an historical novel outlining the progress and challenges of race relations in his life time thru the lives of three intertwined families, one black, one wealthy white, and one poor white. Rampersad's overview captures the subtelty and compelxity of Dubois' understanding of the intersection of racism, political power and capitalism, while conveying is hope for what MLK came to call the "beloved community." A sociologist, political commentator, propagandist,activist, researcher,poet, novelist and historian, W.E.B. Dubois is a man whose life inspires and challenges any who choose to make a difference in the world. Dubois died in Ghana far from his childhood home in Massachusetts where he had hoped to be buried, unsure of how history would remember him. This book does a good job of ensuring he has a place among the greats.
I read parts of this book for a research project for my American History course Junior year of high school. I didn't enjoy this project and didn't do fabulous on it either, so I'm thinking I didn't like or understand much of what I read.