Black Reconstruction In America

Discuss how Du Bois uses figurative, poetic, and romantic language to emphasize and develop his argument(s). What literary techniques does he use, and to what effect?

Assess Du Bois’s use of secondary sources. Do his secondary sources conform to one approach to historiography over another? How does he use secondary sources that he has also critiqued to build his argument? What are the strengths and limitations of his approach?

Choose one of the Black American figures Du Bois mentions in the work, such as Frederick Douglass. How did this figure’s views of the Civil War and/or Reconstruction compare to Du Bois’s later interpretation of these events?

To what extent do the class and race dynamics of the Civil War and Reconstruction as described by du Bois persist today?

Analyze how Du Bois challenges common myths and misconceptions that propagate racist narratives around Black Americans and enslavement. How do these myths reflect Du Bois’s wider concerns around historiography and the wider racial and socioeconomic problems they perpetuate? Do any of these myths still exist today?

Compare Black Reconstruction with W.E.B. du Bois’s other seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk. How did his arguments and concerns remain consistent between 1903 and 1935? How had his ideas changed over time?

Black Reconstruction is a work of history that also functions as a response to events contemporary to Du Bois’s lifetime. What is the relationship between the work and the historical context of the 1920s and 1930s?

Du Bois roughly analogizes the Southern planter class prior to the Civil War with the Ancien Regime in France prior to the French Revolution. Is this an appropriate comparison? Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this analogy.