DAVID LEVERING LEWIS,
DOUBLE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER,
TO SPEAK IN CELEBRATION
OF DUBOIS BOOK CENTENNIAL

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – Historian David Levering Lewis, the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for each of his two volumes on the life of scholar and author W.E.B. DuBois, will speak on "W.E.B. DuBois: The Aristocrat at the Barricades," on Thursday, April 3 at 7 PM in the Art Building's Gamble Auditorium. The talk, part of the College's Mary Lyon Lecture Series, is in celebration of the centennial of the publication of DuBois' seminal The Souls of Black Folk.

Lewis is Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor in the history department at Rutgers University. His biographies of DuBois, W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (Henry Holt and Co., 1994) and W.E.B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality in the American Century, 1919-1963 (Henry Holt and Co., 2001), have received much critical acclaim.

Published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is considered a seminal work in the history of African American letters. A collection of fourteen meditations written over a seven-year period, DuBois' book captures the historical, sociological, biographical, political, and spiritual accomplishments and challenges facing the generations of African Americans who sought to rebuild and extend black institutional life after enslavement and Reconstruction. "The poetry and passion of his descriptions of the effects of racial oppression, the fierce commitment to racial equality of his political and cultural criticism, the profound spirituality grounding his reflections on loss and hope in black family life, are important parts of his legacy to all citizens of the United States," said Lucas B. Wilson, associate professor and chair, African/African American studies program at MHC.

Lewis has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Educated at Fisk and Columbia Universities and the London School of Economics and Political Science, Mr. Lewis is the author of several acclaimed books, including King, A Biography, When Harlem Was in Vogue, and The Race to Fashoda, in addition to his works on DuBois. He and his wife live in Manhattan.

The lecture is sponsored by the African / African American studies program, with additional support from the history department, the College's inclusiveness fund, and the Purrington Fund of the Office of the Dean of the College.