The Souls of Black Folk, This historical book is a foundational work in black protest literature. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) played a key role in developing the strategy and program that dominated black protest in the early twentieth century in America. In this collection of essays, first published together in 1903, he eloquently asserts that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to plead for those rights that inherently belong to all humanity. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy proposed by Booker T. Washington, then the most influential black leader in the United States, would only serve to perpetuate black oppression.