In the worst of America's Jim Crow era, Black intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois found inspiration and hope in national parks
- Written by Thomas S. Bremer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Religious History, Rhodes College
A view of the Grand Canyon after a snowfall.Tom Stoddart/Getty ImagesIn his collection of essays and poems published in 1920 titled “Darkwater,” W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about his poignant encounter with the beauty of the Grand Canyon, the stupendous chasm in Arizona.
As he stood at the canyon’s rim, the towering intellectual and...