Summary

The text opens with quotes from Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois decrying the atrocities of slavery. The Douglass quote speaks to the perseverance of racist attitudes and policies after the abolition of slavery: “Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic” (xiii).

In the preface, Gates explains the purpose of the book: an exploration of the years of Reconstruction following the Civil War, the era of Redemption which followed, and during which the gains of Reconstruction were rolled back exponentially, and the era of the “New Negro” (xviii) that came about as a response. Gates defines the New Negro period as the years between 1894-1925, a time of great intellectual and artistic creativity for African Americans (including the achievements of the Harlem...