The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du BoisThis collection of essays attempts to explain what it's like to be black at the end of the nineteenth century in the United States. Most famously, this collection includes the essay in which Du Bois writes about double consciousness. Du Bois argues that black people in the US, when in the company of whites, have a "sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others." The whiteness of white people doesn't have the salience of blackness to black people, Du Bois argues.
Why this is liberal/progressive: A watershed work in American literature. Should be mandatory reading for every progressive. Du Bois was a brilliant writer and a groundbreaking sociologist. Du Bois lived to be 95 and spent his entire life working on progressive causes, most especially racial equality.
Read it for free here.
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