The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Men can have a huge impact on black women. That seems to be an underlying theme of this vast epic of multigenerational black history. The novel goes back and forth in time from the civil war era to the modern day to explore a fairly well-to-do black family. Creeks also come into play as they are treated as a not-quite-white, but not black group. The modern family has Creek, African and white ancestry. There are legitimate marriages, rapes and out-of-wedlock affairs. Sex and pregnancy comes to impact the lives of women in different ways. One woman had her educational prospects cut short by an unplanned child. She made sure this didn't happen to her daughter by having her get an abortion. However, this daughter ended up getting addicted to drugs and really ruining her life. There are also various modern and "slave-era" rapes as well as standard relationships. It is all quite a mess. In general, the women are running things, while the men are fooling around. However, there are some "good" men that are helping things to move forward. There are not many whites in this novel, and those that appear tend to "not understand" the life of the main characters. The book concludes with the main character learning about history and understanding the efforts to protect an old church site from being trampled by tourists.