W. E. B. DuBois's Exhibit of American Negroes

Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr. is a professor in the School of Education at the University of Miami. He is the author or editor of a number of books, including DuBois on Education and The Illustrated Souls of Black Folk.

• Preface 1: Introduction 2: Awards Received by the Exhibit of the American Negroes at the1900 Paris Universelle Exposition 3: Events for the Year 1900 4: African American Census Indicators for the Year 1900 5: Businesses, Organizations, and Occupations 6: Black Churches and Religion 7: Homes and Families 8: Black Colleges and Universities 9: The Georgia Negro Exhibit (Part I, Charts) 10: The Georgia Negro Exhibit (Part II, Photographs) 11: Books And Pamphlets By Negro Authors 12: Compilation of Laws Affecting Blacks in Georgia 13: Afterword

Denied an invitation to exhibit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, black scholars and leaders were able to get an invitation for the Exhibit of American Negroes at the 1900 Paris Exposition. It was a chance to show the world how African Americans had progressed since emancipation, and its organizer, W. E. B. Du Bois, took full advantage of the opportunity. On display, as well, were his own skills as a sociologist, documenting and analyzing the cultural lives of black Americans through their homes, colleges, churches, businesses, arts, and literature. This was three years before Du Bois wrote his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folks, and before he began his contentious debate with Booker T. Washington on the best way forward for educating black Americans. Drawing on archival material, Provenzo offers more than 200 black-and-white images of displays as well as the statistics and data, also on display, documenting the history and then-current condition of African Americans. This is an important snapshot of life for black Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century.