Algernon’s souls Rewatching The Knick, rereading W.E.B. Du Bois

The Knick tells the story of a New York hospital in the early twentieth century. It spotlights technological breakthroughs that profoundly changed the daily lives of New Yorkers, as well as the sociological realities that divided the population along social, racial, and gender lines. Focusing on the African-American doctor Algernon Edwards, this article studies the description of racial tensions in the context of the writings and career of one of the period’s leading African-American intellectuals: W.E.B. Du Bois.