W.E.B. Du Bois is the other "father" of the Harlem Renaissance. If Langston Hughes captured the heart of the "New Negro," Du Bois captured the mind. (It's okay, one movement can have two daddies.)

Try taking a class on American literature in the 20th Century and avoiding reading Du Bois. We're betting you won't get very far in the syllabus before you see his name. Why?

Oh, you know, he only invented the major terms that defined the philosophical spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. No big deal. Concepts like "twoness" or "double-consciousness" seem normal, even a little boring, now because we're so used to what it means to be a "hyphenated" American.

And that's what identity politics, especially racial identity politics, are all about: embracing multiplicity. Claiming lots of different identities at once.

But back then, Du Bois was the man because he made the concept of a double identity new by making it specific to the "New Negro." In fact, he was one of the most crucial writers to imagine what the New Negro was like and what the New Negro could become.

He was also a huge political activist. Unlike Booker T. Washington, Du Bois believed that black Americans should be educated to the highest levels. That way, he thought, black Americans could effect real change over time.

Which he himself did, by the way. He was the founder of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

Oh, and he had some serious Ivy League cred too. Not that we're into that sort of thing, but, you know, it was a pretty amazing feat back then for an African American to get into Harvard. And not just that: he was the first African-American to get a Ph.D. from Harvard.

That's some serious intellectualism, Shmoopers. Better respect.

The Souls of Black Folk

You can pretty much know Du Bois just by reading his one, major work: The Souls of Black Folk. This book is a collection of autobiographical essays on African American life, centering on American politics. Why is the collection so phenomenal?

In it, Du Bois ended up inventing the major concepts that have since defined race politics in America, especially for African-Americans, ever since. The "color-line," "double-consciousness," the "talented tenth": these terms and ideas all came from Du Bois.

Plus, the writing is really good. We're not kidding. Don't be surprised if you swoon a little; the writing is just that beautiful.

Black Reconstruction in America

The Souls of Black Folk may be the more popular child in Du Bois's family of texts. But make no mistake: Black Reconstruction is pretty major in its own right. It's also huge. Like, 729 pages huge.

But that's not a good reason to read it. (We know, we know—you're just clamoring to read 729 pages, right?) The real reason to dig into it is because it made some groundbreaking arguments. Here, Du Bois put forth an economic reason for why Reconstruction failed and Jim Crow laws came into existence.

Hint: white and black laborers just couldn't get it together and unite against the rich, white landowners of the South, even though that would have been in both of their best interests. Bam.

Chew on This:

Want a little more Du Bois? There's plenty of info to go around regarding his political background and influence during the Jim Crow era.

You might think of DuBois as the big granddaddy of the Harlem Renaissance. If he was second to anyone, it was Langston Hughes. And in fact, he was such a big influence on the writers and artists of his day that Hughes dedicated his poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" to DuBois. That's some serious creative props right there.