The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois was published in 1903 as a celebration of black people. It was also an assessment of race and structural racism in America through an assemblage of essays, poetry, music and conversations. The book offered a kaleidoscopic and nuanced excavation of black identity and culture some 50 years after emancipation, at which time Du Bois famously declared, "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line."
Join Rebecca Carroll for Black Folks, a WNYC Studios podcast pilot that draws on the work of Carroll and that of DuBois. A curated mosaic of black expression, Black Folks features a wide array of guests who will be thoughtful and provocative, at a time in history when black people must still assert that Black Lives Matter. On the show: Eve Ewing, writer and sociologist of race and education; singer-songwriter Madison McFerrin; The New Yorker's Alexis Okeowo; Jay Smooth host of WBAI's "Underground Railroad" and the Ill Doctrine videoblog; and filmmaker/performance artist Jamal Lewis.