There is a growing urgency, in classrooms as well as in publishing at large, to encompass the African American experience, African American thought and culture. Much of the recent headway has been made in the superhero framework, including Black Panther, but not only there. The tremendous success—in sales and prizes—of March, the trilogy based upon the life of Congressman John Lewis, is arguably a landmark. No greater figure exists in African-American thought, the shaping of modern narratives, than W.E.B. Du Bois, even after the nearly six decades following his 1963 death. DuBois not only influenced institutions so greatly as to be credited with reshaping them, he rewrote Black history (with Black Reconstruction, slow to be accepted as one of the classics of all US history). He also arguably supplied what might be described as the “poetics” of African American life. With Souls of Black Folk (first published in 1903), he famously set forth his analysis of the folk culture, including religious folk culture, that would be the basis for future progress. In doing so, he pleaded for education and a new sensibility. But he made clear that the promise of these would not come “from the outside.” A graphic novel based on The Souls of Black Folk will be a dramatic entry to a field growing rapidly within schools and beyond in popular culture. No “W.E.B. Du Bois” comic proper yet exists, a rather amazing absence, perhaps because the complexity of his story has not been taken up. It may also be that Du Bois, whose political life became so controversial from the onset of the Cold War to the end of his life, has seemed a daunting subject. This graphic novel will be less ambitious than a comprehensive biographical treatment. Beginning with a chapter on Du Bois’s life before the writing of The Souls of Black Folk, it will utilize that book itself as the chief text from which to narrate its message, and close with a postscript chapter on Du Bois’s life and work after its publication.
