The term color line was originally used as a reference to the racial segregation that existed in the United States after the abolition of slavery. An article by Frederick Douglass that was titled "The Color Line"[ was published in the North American Review in 1881. The phrase gained fame after W. E. B. Du Bois' repeated use of it in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk.
The phrase sees current usage as a reference to modern racial discrimination in the United States and legalized segregation after the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement.
W. E. B. du Bois: Black Reconstruction (LOA #350) by 
Class Struggle and the Color Line by
Collecting, for the first time, source materials from a diverse array of writers and organizers, this reader provides a new perspective on the complex history of revolutionary debates about fighting anti-Black racism. Contextual material from the editor places each contribution in its historical and political setting, making this volume ideal for both scholars and activists.
Sojourning for Freedom by
Sojourning for Freedom portrays pioneering black women activists from the early twentieth century through the 1970s, focusing on their participation in the U.S. Communist Party (CPUSA) between 1919 and 1956.
One of the principal founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, and editor of several influential journals, W.E.B. Du Bois was for many years the leading black intellectual in the United States. Through his teaching, writings, and speeches he advocated economic, political, and cultural advancement of blacks not only in the United States but also abroad.
The Souls of Black Folk by
Originally published in 1903, Souls introduced a number of now-canonical terms into the American conversation about race, among them double-consciousness, and it sounded the ominous warning that'the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.
