Morals and Manners among Negro Americans

By (author) W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, Augustus Dill Edited by Robert A. Wortham

Publication date:

10 May 2010

Length of book:

210 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

232x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739116708

Morals and Manners among Negro Americans is the sequel to W.E.B. Du Bois' The Negro Church. This 1914 study is the last Atlanta University Conference volume to be edited or coedited by Du Bois and is based on a national survey addressing the then current state of morals and manners within the African American community. A case study of the Black Church in Atlanta and an extensive discussion of crime are included also. The national survey addressed such topics as good manners, sound morals, habits of cleanliness, personal honesty, home life, rearing of children, activities for young people, the care of the elderly, church ministries, and an evaluation of recent progress. While the original conference volume included actual lists of the evaluators' responses by topic and classified by state, the data were not analyzed. This reissue of the classic sociological study includes an extensive introduction based on Robert Wortham's content analysis of the survey responses. The results of this analysis are presented in tabular form and discussed, and a statistical appendix summarizing the raw data for each topic by state is provided. This new edition presents readers with an opportunity to evaluate general and regional trends in the evaluators' perception of the state of morals and manners within the African American community at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Chapter 1 Morals and Manners: An Introduction by Robert A. Wortham
Chapter 2 PROGRAM OF THE EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Chapter 3 PREFACE
Chapter 4 RESOLUTIONS
Chapter 5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chapter 6 1. SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY
Chapter 7 2. THE GENERAL PROBLEM
Chapter 8 3. THE AMERICAN ENVIRONMENT
Chapter 9 4. GOOD MANNERS
Chapter 10 5. SOUND MORALS
Chapter 11 6. CLEANLINESS
Chapter 12 7. PERSONAL HONESTY
Chapter 13 8. HOME LIFE
Chapter 14 9. REARING OF CHILDREN
Chapter 15 10. AMUSEMENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Chapter 16 11. CARING FOR OLD PEOPLE
Chapter 17 12. THE CHURCH
Chapter 18 13. PRESENT CONDITIONS COMPARED WITH PAST
Chapter 19 14. CONCLUSION

The recent spate of monographs on, and reprints of Du Bois's sociological discourse leaves little room to doubt his pioneering contributions to the development of a distinctly "American" sociology. Robert Wortham's reprint of Morals and Manners demonstrates that the innovative empirical sociology of religion Du Bois inaugurated in his 1903 classic, The Negro Church, was endeavored again a decade later. Even the most discerning scholars of Du Bois's sociology will marvel at Wortham's meticulous introduction, which cogently situates Du Bois's "scientific sociology" within the emerging world of sociology at the turn of the twentieth century. In short, Wortham's work here is nothing less than brilliant, as it promises to bring Du Bois's sociological discourse to an even wider audience. This volume symbolizes not simply a much-needed reprint but, even more, a long-awaited revival!