Darkwater: Lessons on Movement Making from W. E. B. Du Bois

Abstract

Reading is rarely affirmed for its healing potential—for its ability to name that which the reader may be experiencing either directly or in allegory. I felt this reading Susan Howatch’s Church of England Series as her characters navigated the pressures and expectations of their vocational careers in the ministry and the adventures of their personal lives. I felt this when reading Henri Nouwen, Kirk Jones, and Parker Palmer as they have spoken directly to the suffering, exhaustion, and internal conflict that I felt early on in my pastoral ministry. But perhaps the first time I ever felt this—and had that deep literary connection was in reading The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois.