W.E.B. Du Bois Turned Data Into Art, And Used It To Humanize The Black Experience

Data are more than just facts and figures — they can tell a story.

That's exactly what W.E.B. Du Bois was using data for in 1900, when he showcased dozens of data portraits at a world's fair in Paris.

The portraits offered a rare glimpse of African-American life, post-Emancipation. The idea was to change the conventional narrative about people of color at the fair, which generally portrayed them as savages who needed the civilizing influence of colonialism.

For the first time, two UMass-Amherst professors have compiled all the images together into a book titled "W.E.B. Du Bois' Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America."

Paris Alston, Radio Boston producer. She tweets @BonjourParis_.