This volume collects W.E.B. Du Bois' sociological writings from 1898 to 1910. The selections include discussion on the conception of sociology and sociological research, especially as a tool in the struggle for racial justice along with an assessment of race relations before and after World War II.

Historian, journalist, educator, and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du Bois was perhaps most accomplished as a sociologist of race relations and of the black community in the United States. This volume collects his most important sociological writings from 1898 to 1910. The eighteen selections include five on Du Bois's conception of sociology and sociological research, especially as a tool in the struggle for racial justice; excerpts from studies of black communities in the South and the North, including "The Philadelphia Negro; writings on black culture and social life, with a selection from "The Negro American Family; and later works on race relations in the United States and elsewhere after World War II. This section includes a powerful fiftieth-anniversary reassessment of his classic 1901 article in the "Atlantic in which he predicted that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."