Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept is an autobiographical text by W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois attended Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate...

, which, published in 1940, examines Du Bois's life and family history in the context of contemporaneous developments in race relations.

Having grown up in the nearly all-white Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois experienced a cultural awakening in 1885 when he entered the historically black Fisk University as a sophomore. He writes that at Fisk he realized he had not been taught anything positive about black people. He becomes enamored with their various shades of skin tone. “From my childhood I have been impressed with the beauty of Negro skin-color and astonished at the blindness of whites who cannot see it.
Preceded by the more well known The Souls of Black Folk

The Souls of Black Folk

The Souls of Black Folk is a classic work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, and a cornerstone of African-American literary history....

(1903), Dusk of Dawn focuses on a number of topics: Du Bois's relationship with Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...

, his reasons for leaving the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...

, and presenting a new concept of race.

In contrast to Washington's Up From Slavery

Up From Slavery

Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his slow and steady rise from a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the...

, a generic blend of slave narrative

Slave narrative

The slave narrative is a literary form which grew out of the written accounts of enslaved Africans in Britain and its colonies, including the later United States, Canada and Caribbean nations...

 and autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, Dusk of Dawn traces the genealogy of the race concept as it has affected Du Bois's life.

Here is how Du Bois describes this concept:

This was the race concept which has dominated my life,and the history of which I have attempted to make the leading theme of this book. It had as I have tried to show all sorts of illogical trends and irreconcilable tendencies. Perhaps it is wrong to speak of it at all as "a concept" rather than as a group of contradictory forces, facts and tendencies. At any rate I hope I have made its meaning to me clear.