In Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920), W.E.B. Du Bois presented a variety of his essays and short fiction on race, class, and gender topics. Some pieces were knife-edged and audacious as befits the book’s intention to challenge prevailing views on social issues. He mixed previously published works and new pieces as he did in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Darkwater shared other similarities with the earlier book. Notably Du Bois continued to explore and promote African American agency – i.e., the capacity of persons of colour to actively and consciously guide their own destinies – and to advocate voting rights and the end of Jim-Crow segregation. Also as in Souls, Du Bois examined …
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Citation: Williams, Robert W.. "Darkwater". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 September 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5758, accessed 27 November 2024.]
