Data & History & Soul:

🎨 Recreating History: What W.E.B. Du Bois Taught Me About Data and Identity

Original Plate №20

How a 1900 hand-drawn map of Georgia reconnected me with my own journey and the power of visual storytelling.

“Data is not neutral. It is a narrative of power.”

In 1900, at the Paris Exposition, W.E.B. Du Bois and his team of Black sociologists presented a series of revolutionary hand-drawn data portraits. They didn’t just want to “inform” the world; they wanted to challenge it. They used color, geometry, and data to dismantle racial stereotypes and showcase the progress of African Americans after emancipation.

As part of the #DuBoisChallenge2026, I took on the task of recreating Plate 20 — a complex map of land ownership in Georgia between 1870 and 1900.

Modern Plate Recreated By Me

📖 The Story Behind the Map

This project was more than a technical exercise for me. Atlanta, Georgia, was the first city I ever stepped foot in when I moved to the United States at age 15. I arrived alone, with nothing but my suitcases and a heart full of uncertainty.

Recreating this map years later, using modern tools like Python and GeoPandas, felt like a “full-circle” moment. I wasn’t just mapping acres; I was mapping the very soil where my own American journey began.

🛠️ The Craft: Tech Meets Tradition

To honor Du Bois’s original aesthetic — what I like to call the “Mother Crown” touch — I intentionally broke modern data visualization rules:

The Palette: Instead of smooth, automated gradients, I used discrete, bold color blocks (Crimson, Gold, Indigo) based on the original 1900 palette.

The Texture: I swapped the sterile white background for a custom antique paper texture (#f5f0e8).

The Typography: I chose serif fonts to mirror the hand-drawn elegance of the original print.

The Logic: Using “categorical binning” to emphasize social shifts rather than just statistical density.

Modern Plate vs. Original Plate

🧠 Reflections: Why Du Bois Still Matters

Working on Plate 20 taught me that data visualization is a political act. Du Bois wasn’t just visualizing statistics; he was reshaping perception. He knew that how we see data changes how we see people.

In an era of AI and automated charts, returning to these hand-drawn principles reminds us that the human element — the narrative — is what makes data stick.

📊 Behind the Scenes

For those interested in the technical implementation, here is a glimpse into the stack:

Language: Python 3.x

Libraries: GeoPandas, Matplotlib, Pandas, NumPy

Spatial Data: Glynn Bird’s GeoJSON boundaries

You can find the full source code and the technical “audit” of this recreation on my GitHub:

👉 [GitHub Link]

Authored by M. Ipek EGMEN DataViz Society W.E.B. Du Bois Challenge 06 Inspired by: “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America”

*The original plates may be accessed at the Library of Congress.

datavizsociety #duboischallenge #2026 #geopandas #politics #art #cartography*