The Ordeal of Mansart

The Black Flame trilogy of W. E. B. Du Bois animates the Harvard-trained author's sociological and historical studies of Black history, converting scholarship into fascinating and illuminating prose. The narrative trajectory of the main character, a representative African American named Manuel Mansart, parallels the life of Du Bois himself. The Black Flame is much more than one man's tale, of course. It is a vivid retelling of the African American experience - broadly and precisely depicted by one of the original founders of the NAACP. The Ordeal of Mansart is the first work in the classic trilogy, following Mansart's early life from the time of Reconstruction up until his participation in black education in Atlanta. It is an exposé of Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and general aggravated racism. Other historical facts abound, such as individualized and institutionalized aggressions, physical atrocities, strategic disagreements with Booker T. Washington, the Atlanta race riot of 1906, political and economic factors (Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, trade unions), the struggle for equal educational facilities, and much more. Mansart is a towering figure within a key work of art for Black literature.