Introduction & Overview of The Song of the Smoke by W.E.B. DuBois

The Song of the Smoke Introduction

W. E. B. Du Bois was 39 years old when "The Song of the Smoke" was published in the February 1907 issue of Horizon, a magazine which he himself edited. The poem is understood as "an affirmation of black pride," but Du Bois's ultimate acceptance of the need to call for black pride was the culmination of a difficult process. He was born into a community of free blacks in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, and after his mother's death, he was given a scholarship by the primarily white town. Although he had deeply desired to go to Harvard, it was the town's stipulation that this scholarship was to be used at Fisk University, founded for the children of emancipated slaves. While Du Bois had long believed that education and a sense of purpose were all that blacks needed to gain a place as Americans after having been freed from...
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