Native Life in South Africa (1916) is a book by Solomon T. Plaatje. Written while Plaatje was serving as General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress, the work shows the influence of American activist and socialist historian W. E. B. Du Bois, whom Plaatje met and befriended. Using historical analysis and firsthand accounts from native South Africans, Plaatje exposes the cruelty of colonialism and analyzes the significance of the 1913 Natives’ Land Act. “Awaking on Friday morning, June 20, 1913, the South African Native found himself, not actually a slave, but a pariah in the land of his birth.” Native Life in South Africa begins with the passage of the 1913 Natives’ Land Act, which made it illegal for Black South Africans to lease and purchase land outside of government designated reserves. The act, which was the first of many segregation laws passed by the Union Parliament, was devastating to millions of poor South African natives, most of whom relied on leasing land from white farmers to survive.Native Life in South Africa is a classic of South African literature reimagined for modern readers.

Uses a wide variety of documents to show how Americans dealt with an age of extremes from 1887 to 1900, including rapid industrialization, unemployment, unprecedented wealth, and immigration.

A look at African Americans’ contributions to the United States by the iconic leader whose life spanned from the Civil War to the civil rights movement. The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and a cofounder of the NAACP, W. E. B. Du Bois remains a towering figure in US history. In The Gift of Black Folk, he celebrates Black Americans’ struggle for equality—a battle that would continue long after slavery was abolished—and in the ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union. As explorers, laborers, soldiers, artists, slaves, freedmen, and citizens, these individuals played an essential part in the unique conglomerate that is the United States, and their remarkable, often unsung history is conveyed in this classic work.