Deconstructing Power: W.E.B. Du Bois in Paris

The 1900 World’s Fair in Paris sought to celebrate the achievements of the passing century and herald the promise of the next. Seizing the opportunity to highlight and contextualize the progress achieved by Black Americans for an international audience, the scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois worked with his students at Atlanta University to create infographics both specific (the number of Black children enrolled in public schools in post-Emancipation Georgia) and broad (a comparison of Black and white employment nationwide in 1890). Deconstructing Power: W.E.B. Du Bois at the 1900 World’s Fair brings together 20 of these hand-drawn data visualizations with works of decorative art also displayed at the event.