About W.E.B. Du Bois
There are many interesting online pages with biographical details of W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) and various aspects of his life, writings, and activities. Works by and about Shirley Graham, Du Bois's second wife, are also available on the Web.
This web page is organized according to the following sections
(with the sections being internally alphabetized):
I have written a biographical profile of Du Bois[link below], which is available at The Literary Encyclopedia .
Robert W. Williams, Ph.D. [Bio]
This web page is organized according to the following sections
(with the sections being internally alphabetized):
* Credo Online Repository of DuBoisian works
* Autobiographical Works by Du Bois
* Photographs of Du Bois & Others
* Biographies: Notes, Overviews, & Longer Works
* Tributes, Obituaries, & Commemorations
* On Du Bois' Scholarship & Activism
* Booker T. Washington & Du Bois
* Other Aspects of Du Bois' Life
I have written a biographical profile of Du Bois

LATEST UPDATES (for 1 July 2024)
Posted below is an updated link to Ralph McGill's interview of Du Bois that was published in The Atlantic Monthly (November 1965).
Also posted below is an updated link to "W.E.B. Du Bois as a Study Abroad Student in Germany, 1892-1894, written by Hamilton Beck (Frontiers, 1996).
Also posted below is an updated link to "W.E.B. Du Bois as a Study Abroad Student in Germany, 1892-1894, written by Hamilton Beck (Frontiers, 1996).
CREDO ONLINE REPOSITORY OF DU BOIS' WORKS

The Credo repository allows us online viewing of over 600 photographs that are part of the Du Bois Collection. Many of them are of Du Bois himself at various stages of his life as well as photos of his funeral. Numerous photos depict persons other than Du Bois or his family.
Each posted item from the Du Bois collection has metadata describing the contents by topic, persons or organizations involved, and relevant dates. We can browse the available items. There are options for browsing the metadata for each item by name, subjects mentioned, and genre (items grouped into categories such as agendas, memoranda, and notes). We can also search for terms found in the metadata for each item in the Credo. The search results and browsing options can be filtered by date (earliest to latest and vice versa) and creator (alphabetized ascending or descending). I must note that the contents of specific items are not searchable, only the metadata created by the team at SCUA.
For more information on how the Credo project has unfolded, view "W. E. B. to Web: Digitizing the Manuscript Collection of W. E. B. Du Bois" by Abigail Baines and Jeremy Smith [ 2011 ALA poster (~529 PDF file)].
Credo will prove its usefulness for Du Bois research in countless ways.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORKS BY DU BOIS



WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS
Born at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868. Son of Alfred Alexander and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) Du Bois. Prepared at Great Barrington High School, Great Barrington, Mass.
In College, 1888-90, Degrees: A.B. 1890; A.M. 1891; Ph.D. 1895; A.B. (Fisk Univ.) 1888.
Married to Nina Gomer at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 12, 1890.
Children: Burghardt Gomer, born Oct. 8. 1897, died May 24, 1899; Nina Yolande, born Oct. 14, 1900.
Children: Burghardt Gomer, born Oct. 8. 1897, died May 24, 1899; Nina Yolande, born Oct. 14, 1900.
Occupation: Editor, New York.
Since 1915 I have continued my work as editor of "The Crisis"
magazine, which has a circulation of one hundred thousand. I have
also begun the publication of a magazine for colored children, known
as "The Brownies’ Book." I have published "The Negro" in The
Home University Library, in 1915, and "Darkwater," a book of
essays, in 1920. After the armistice, I was sent to France to represent
the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People.
While there, I assembled a Pan-African Conference with fifty delegates,
representing sixteen different Negro groups. This conference
made report to the Peace Conference, concerning the future of Africa
and the treatment of colored peoples.


* The selections offered are "Birth and Family" (ch. vi); "Harvard in the Last Decades of the 19th Century" (ch. ix); "The Niagra Movement" (ch. xiv); "The NAACP" (ch. xv); "My Character" (ch. xvi); "Work for Peace" (ch. xx); "My Tenth Decade" (ch. xxiii); and "Postlude."

PHOTOGRAPHS OF DU BOIS AND OTHERS
[ Alphabetized by the Hosting Institution or Organization ]





BIOGRAPHIES: NOTES, OVERVIEWS & LONGER WORKS
[ Alphabetized by Author (including those by "Anonymous") ]


Du Bois' years in Georgia were some of the most productive in his seventy-plus years of scholarship and activism. While he has most often been associated with New England, it was in Georgia and other parts of the South that Du Bois focused much of his studies on black social conditions.

Dr. William E. Burghardt Du Bois, whose paper, "Strivings of the American Negro," [sic] in the Atlantic Monthly for August has attracted wide attention, has recently been elected assistant professor of history and economics in Atlanta University, and is one of the best trained of the younger men who are devoting themselves to the uplifting of their race. Born in Massachusetts, a graduate of Fisk University, and having also a bachelor's degree from Harvard College, he has devoted himself for several years to advanced study in the graduate department of Harvard University and in the leading universities of Europe. He received the degree of doctor of philosophy from Harvard. His work everywhere received marked attention, and his publications, including a large volume in the Harvard Historical Series on "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade," and various contributions to periodical literature, have all won high praise. During the past year Dr. Du Bois has been assistant in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, and has had charge of an investigation by the university of the condition of the negro population of the seventh ward in the city of Philadelphia. He has thus been brought into personal contact with many of the most practical sides of the negro question.
Note 1: "Negro" is not capitalized in the original text.
Note 2: The full citation is: Anonymous. 1897. "Writers of the Day -- Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois." The Writer, Vol. X, No. 11 (November):167.
(Details about this particular work can be found at Google Books' More-about-this-book page).
Note 3: Web locations for Du Bois' "Strivings" essay -- which is actually titled "Strivings of the Negro People" -- are listed on the Souls page of <www.webdubois.org>.

Atlanta University.---Dr. William E. Burghardt DuBois has been appointed Professor of Social Science and History at Atlanta University. Dr. DuBois was born on February 23, 1868, at Great Barrington, Mass., and obtained his early education in the public schools of his native town. He entered Fisk University in 1885 and graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1888. He then entered Harvard University, receiving the degree of A. B., cum Laude, in 1890. He pursued post-graduate studies at Harvard* for two years, receiving the degree of A. M. in 1891, and then attended the University of Berlin for three semesters during 1892-94. The succeeding two years he was Professor of Greek and Latin at Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio, and in 1895 received the degree of Ph. D. from Harvard.† He has been Assistant in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania during the past year, and has had charge of an investigation into the condition of the negroes of Philadelphia. Dr. DuBois is a member of the American Historical Association and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He has written a series of articles on social reforms among the negroes for the New York Age. Besides this he is the author of the following books:
"The Enforcement of the Slave Trade Laws." Transactions of American Historical Association, 1892.
"The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America." Pp. 335. New York, 1897.
"The Conservation of Races." Pp. 16. Washington, 1897.

* See Annals, Vol. i, p. 296, October, 1890.
† Ibid., Vol. vi, p. 301, September, 1895.
Note 1: "Negro" is not capitalized in the original text.
Note 2: The full citation is: Anonymous. 1897. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 10, no. 5 (September): p. 104. [This page number uses issue pagination, which is equivalent to the volume pagination of p. 252.]
Note 3: The footnotes were references to earlier issues of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science that presented very brief notices about DuBois' graduation dates.





* This book review is still accessible: Jean Blake wrote a review of Broderick's book (International Socialist Review, Vol.21 No. 1, Winter 1960).



* Lecture 1 (~44 min. duration ). DuBois is the starting point for the course. This lecture covers biographical details of DuBois's life; Dr. Carson discusses The Souls of Black Folk, the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, Marcus Garvey, and the marriage of Yolanda Du Bois to Countee Cullen.
* Lecture 2 (~62 min. duration). The lecture discusses DuBois during the 1930s, with details provided on the Scottsboro case and Communism, DuBois's tensions at the NAACP, Black / White issues in the labor movement, race relations during the Roosevelt Presidency, and Mary McCleod Bethune.
* Lecture 3 (~79 min. duration). Shirley Graham is the focus of this lecture, which offers a bio of her life and details of her actions in the 1940s: her ties to the NAACP and to the Communist Party, as well as her relationship with DuBois and her later marriage to him. The lecture also covers the politics of World War II and the Cold War with regard to W.E.B. Du Bois.
* Other video-taped course lectures by Dr. Carson and guest speakers discuss the significance of such activists as Paul Robeson, Bayard Rustin, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr., women in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Ella Baker, Bob Moses, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Angela Davis.




DuBois, William Edward Burghardt [c 1888-90, A.B.;
g 1890-3, A.M. 1891, PH.D. 1895; A.B. Fisk (Tenn.) 1888.
Edit. Lit.] "The Crisis," 26 Vesey St. New York, N.Y. One can compare this 1913 entry with the 1919 sketch posted below. For example, Du Bois's previous bachelor's degree from Fisk was indicated here.
Note 1: The entry detailed Du Bois's undergraduate years (the "c") and degree earned as well as his graduate school within Harvard (the "g"), complete with matriculation dates and degrees earned. It also listed his current occupation as an editor, with The Crisis as the place of employment (the address was presumably a work address). (Legend: c = "College"; g = "Graduate School of Arts and Sciences"; Edit. = "Editorial Work"; Lit. = Letters).
Note 2: The full citation is: Committee of the Harvard Alumni Association. 1913. Harvard University Directory: A Catalogue of Men Now Living Who Have Been Enrolled as Students in the University; Including Also Officers of Instruction and Administration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (A few more details about this particular work can be found at Google Books' More-about-this-book page).
Note 3: As with the 1919 Harvard Alumni Directory entry (posted below), Du Bois's race is not mentioned. See Note 3 for the 1919 Harvard Alumni Directory.
Note 4: The Preface by the Committee members conveyed the purpose of the work (p. v): [T]he Directory will provide a means whereby all Harvard men living in any town, city, state, or section can be reached, whether for their own social advantage, or for cooperation in undertakings for the immediate benefit of the University.
What might have been Du Bois' comments on such a purpose and its actual practice?

on thousands of its alumnae. Du Bois' listing (p. 203), like the others, is quite terse:
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt [c 88-90, A.B.;
g 90-93, A.M. 91; Ph.D. 95. Edit.] Room 622, 70 Fifth Ave.,
New York, N.Y.
Note 1: The details specify Du Bois's undergraduate years and degree earned; his particular graduate school within Harvard, along with matriculation dates and degrees earned; his current occupation as editor (of The Crisis); and an address (home? workplace?). (Legend: c = "College"; g = "Graduate School of Arts and Sciences"; Edit. = "Editorial Work").
g 90-93, A.M. 91; Ph.D. 95. Edit.] Room 622, 70 Fifth Ave.,
New York, N.Y.
Note 2: The full citation is: Harvard Alumni Directory Office. 1919. Harvard Alumni Directory: A Catalogue of Former Students Now Living: Including Graduates and Non-Graduates, and the Holders of Honorary Degrees. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Alumni Association.
(Details about this particular work can be found at Google Books' More-about-this-book page).
Note 3: It is interesting to observe that the Harvard notice does not include Du Bois' race (or anyone else's). His racial heritage is often mentioned by the "who's-who"-style biographical dictionaries of the early 20th century.






The authors provided an overview of the influential role that African Americans occupied throughout U.S. history and presented a multitude of vignettes outlining the accomplishments of various African Americans. The book's brief biographical sketch about
Prof. W. E. Burghardt Dubois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, February 23, 1868. He was educated in the public schools, and at Fisk University, Harvard University and the university at Berlin. He was two years a fellow of Harvard, and holds her degree of
Note 2: A few other details about this particular work can be found at the Google Books' About-this-book page.

The "four voices" in the video title refer to the four sections of the film that span four periods of Du Bois's life, each of which is narrated by one of the four writers: Wesley Brown, Thulani Davis, Toni Cade Bambara, and Amiri Baraka. Interspersed within this relatively comprehensive video are interviews and images (still and moving) are voice-overs by Du Bois himself; they are drawn from Moses Asch's interview with Du Bois.
The topics covered include a range of social and political issues, as well as many examples of Du Bois's activism. The following lists the topics more or less in the order presented in the documentary: Du Bois's early childhood and education at Fisk (note: Du Bois's Harvard and German education is scarcely examined); Booker T. Washington; Marcus Garvey; the NAACP; Souls of BLack Folk; Black Reconstruction; Encyclopedia of the Negro; Du Bois's proposed social scientific study to be conducted by Black Land Grant Colleges (1944); Pan-African Conference in 1945; the formation of the United Nations; Walter White; John Hope; decolonization and anti-colonialism; the 1948 presidential election campaign; the Soviet Union; Communism around the world and in Europe and the USA; post-World War 2 peace movements; Waldorf Peace Conference; Paris Peace Congress; Paul Robeson; McCarthyism; Peace Information Center; Du Bois's Senate campaign; Du Bois's indictment and acquittal as an agent of a foreign power; Du Bois's 83rd birthday celebration; Du Bois's Talented Tenth concept; Du Bois's membership in the U.S. Communist Party; Ghana and Nkrumah; and Du Bois's death and burial in Ghana.
Numerous persons were interviewed for the documentary, some of who have passed on since their appearance. The interviewees are presented here more or less in the order they appeared in the documentary, although some spoke more than once in different places: Wesley Brown; Thulani Davis; Toni Cade Bambara; Amiri Baraka; Anna Walling Hamburger; Patrick Bellegarde-Smith; Esther Cooper Jackson; John Henrik Clarke; Louise Thompson Patterson; Marcus Garvey Jr.; Hubert Ross; David Levering Lewis; DuBois Williams (Du Bois's grand daughter); Paula Giddings; Herbert Aptheker; Ruth Morris Graham; Blyden Jackson; Harold Cruse; Louis Harlan; Estelle James; Robert Weaver; Marvel Jackson Cooke; Lily Golden; Gloster Current; Robert Thompson (former student of Du Bois); Gladys Williams Powell (former student of Du Bois); Lucy Grigsby; John Hope II; David Graham Du Bois; Dorothy Hunton; James E. Jackson; Howard Fast; Vicki Garvin; Abbott Simon; Carlton Moss; Frances Williams; Annette Rubenstein; and Paul Robeson Jr.

In 1934 Du Bois resigned from the NAACP board and from the Crisis because of his new advocacy of an African American nationalist strategy: African American controlled institutions, schools, and economic cooperatives. This approach opposed the NAACP's commitment to integration. However, he returned to the NAACP as director of special research from 1944 to 1948.











BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS [By Date]



WHEREAS,
Upon the occasion of the observance of the 142nd Birthday of
W.E.B. Du Bois, this Legislative Body wishes to commemorate the lifelong
struggle of the man who was the most prominent intellectual leader and
political activist on behalf of African-Americans in the first half of
the twentieth century; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to commemorate the 142nd Birthday of American civil rights activist pioneer William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, and pay tribute to his life and accomplishments.
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to commemorate the 142nd Birthday of American civil rights activist pioneer William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, and pay tribute to his life and accomplishments.



TRIBUTES, OBITUARIES, & COMMEMORATIONS


* DuBoisweb.org offers a chronology of Du Bois' life and lists of dissertations and secondary sources on Du Bois, as well as of memorials honoring him.

[Another site for this essay is at the Sacramento Observer (posted 5 September 2003).]




ON DU BOIS' SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVISM

[Here is an obituary of Aptheker (1915-2003) by Clayborne Carson in the Organization of American Historians Newsletter.]

As we have shown, black sociologists have long been attentive to their white counterparts, illustrated here in our account of W.E.B. Du Bois's relationship to the scientific vocation of Max Weber and Stuart Hall's engagement with the maverick sociology of C. Wright Mills. As white sociologists our work has been profoundly shaped by the writings of black scholars as well as the wider traditions of black literature, music and vernacular culture. We have argued that engaging with the legacy of black intellectual figures like Du Bois and Hall offers the opportunity to foster an expanded sense of what sociology might become both politically but also aesthetically. The proto-inter-disciplinarity of Du Bois as a writer pointed to the possibility, over a century ago, of doing sociology differently. His example adds an important precedent for our argument because he demonstrated the value of doing sociology with other disciplines and intellectual crafts. Du Bois and Hall's example invites the possibility of a reconstructed sociology conducted artfully with and through associated disciplines within the arts and humanities. However, this prospect and possibility seems limited by shifts within the academic culture in which professional sociology is situated.
Les Back posts biographical information on his page at Goldsmiths, University of London. Maggie Tate details her academic work at the University of Texas at Austin.

He has made various investigations, frequently for the national government, and has contributed many sociological studies to leading magazines. He has been the moving spirit of the Atlanta Conference, and by the Studies of Negro Problems, which he has edited at Atlanta University, he has become recognized as one of the great sociologists of the day, and as the man who more than anyone else has given scientific accuracy to studies relating to the Negro.
Brawley reached the following overall assessment of Du Bois in the concluding paragraph of Chapter V (pp. 65-6):
W. E. Burghardt DuBois is the best example that has so far appeared of the combination of high scholarship and the peculiarly romantic temperament of the Negro race. Beneath all the play of logic and statistic beats the passion of a mighty human heart. For a long time he was criticised as aloof, reserved, unsympathetic; but more and more, as the years have passed, has his mission become clearer, his love for his people stronger. Forced by the pressure of circumstance, gradually has he been led from the congenial retreat of the scholar into the arena of social struggle; but for two decades he has remained an outstanding interpreter of the spiritual life of his people. He is to-day the foremost leader of the race in America.
[Note 1: The full citation: Brawley, Benjamin Griffith. 1921. The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States. New York: Duffield & Company.]
[Note 2: Archive.org has several books by Brawley available online: listing. Google Books offers a few other Brawley works: search results.]


In "A Life Lived" St. Clair Drake covered the span of Du Bois's life and thought, with some emphasis on his organizational activities in the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the Pan-African conferences. Of Du Bois's lasting significance, St. Clair Drake wrote:
But Du Bois' major contribution to our epoch is not the shelf of books he wrote or the scores of articles, nor even the 30-odd leadership years with the N.A.A.C.P., but is rather the contribution of "a life lived experimentally and self-documented"—a restless, seeking, ever searching quest, a life journey which began in New England, carried him over the whole world, and ended—by his own choice—on the Guinea Coast from whence one group of his ancestors came. Dr. Du Bois, throughout his long lifetime, was often accused of ideological inconsistency and biographers use the term "paradoxical" frequently when writing about him. The real significance of his ideological twisting and turning, and of the apparent "paradoxes" in his behavior, lies in the fact that Dr. Du Bois conceived of his life as a continuous probe, touching the sensitive areas along the color-line, and considered it his duty to document the results of the probing as well as his own reaction to the situations. (p.113)
Note: More information on St. Clair Drake is available online:* Peter B. Flint's "St. Clair Drake, Pioneer in Study Of Black Americans, Dies at 79", an obituary from the New York Times, 21 June 1990 [registration may be required].
* Faye V. Harrison's "Drake, St. Clair", a biography from the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (2008) and accessible at Encyclopedia.com.
* Thomas Weaver's "J. G. St. Clair Drake: Activist-Advocate before His Time"—Ch.20 [~100 KB PDF] in The Dynamics of Applied Anthropology in the Twentieth Century: The Malinowski Award Papers, edited by Thomas Weaver (Oklahoma City, OK: Society for Applied Anthropology, n.d.)

The idea that theories of race, racial segregation and racism have played a central role in the development of sociology and that black and white sociologies have formed because of this condition is not new and has been in circulation among sociologists for some time. [....]
This study argues that black sociology and white sociology represent two distinct intellectual perspectives---sets of ideas---and social practices shaped by past perspectives and practices and social-historical contexts, which are largely racially-defined. [....] To map these two traditions, I begin with a review and analysis of works that have discussed (directly or indirectly) black and white sociology and black and white sociologists. Next, I turn to a more focused analysis on the sociological perspectives and practices of W.E.B. Du Bois and Robert Park, examining the ideas and practices that shape each sociologist's thought and actions. [....] Lastly, I point out how Du Bois' ideas and methods, shaped by an earlier black tradition, now informs what is described as black sociology, and how Park's ideas and methods, shaped by an earlier white tradition, now informs what is described as white sociology. [pp.iii-iv]
In the dissertation Elias situates Du Bois within his intellectual context: This study argues that black sociology and white sociology represent two distinct intellectual perspectives---sets of ideas---and social practices shaped by past perspectives and practices and social-historical contexts, which are largely racially-defined. [....] To map these two traditions, I begin with a review and analysis of works that have discussed (directly or indirectly) black and white sociology and black and white sociologists. Next, I turn to a more focused analysis on the sociological perspectives and practices of W.E.B. Du Bois and Robert Park, examining the ideas and practices that shape each sociologist's thought and actions. [....] Lastly, I point out how Du Bois' ideas and methods, shaped by an earlier black tradition, now informs what is described as black sociology, and how Park's ideas and methods, shaped by an earlier white tradition, now informs what is described as white sociology. [pp.iii-iv]
I have attempted to demonstrate that during the nineteenth century the first wave black sociologists [FWBS] produced more advanced sociological ideas and practices than first wave white sociologists [FWWS]. Early black sociologists clearly reveal that whites' social construction of immoral and unjust slave societies and whites' later imperialist exploitation of people of color and their lands is, in fact, the true "social problem," and that blacks are not in fact the social problem as whites' hyper-focus on supposed "black pathologies" would indicate. FWBS documented how the world‘s gravest problems are a direct result of whites' past enslavement of blacks and present colonization of blacks and most people of color, creation of a segregated, apartheid social world, and attempt to reduce all people of color into servants or pawns.
Battling these tendencies of the white frame, and the way these tendencies are justified by the white sociological frame, first wave and later black sociologists have developed a sounder alternative approach to sociology. This advanced type of sociology began with one 'founder of sociology,' David Walker, who developed a detailed sociological analysis and critique of American society and problems of white racism prior to Auguste Comte's first sociological writings, which justified white racism and white-run social systems like the US. Along with Walker, Martin Delany, Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, William Brown and George Williams developed the foundation for black sociology that W.E.B. Du Bois and later black sociologists have built upon. The advanced construction of black sociology has demonstrated the 'construction flaws' of the white sociological frame, a frame that engages in questionable theories and practices to maintain whites' power in society and the discipline. [pp.348-349, footnote removed.]
Elias' dissertation also examines the significance of Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, and the Hull House, among other topics.
Battling these tendencies of the white frame, and the way these tendencies are justified by the white sociological frame, first wave and later black sociologists have developed a sounder alternative approach to sociology. This advanced type of sociology began with one 'founder of sociology,' David Walker, who developed a detailed sociological analysis and critique of American society and problems of white racism prior to Auguste Comte's first sociological writings, which justified white racism and white-run social systems like the US. Along with Walker, Martin Delany, Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, William Brown and George Williams developed the foundation for black sociology that W.E.B. Du Bois and later black sociologists have built upon. The advanced construction of black sociology has demonstrated the 'construction flaws' of the white sociological frame, a frame that engages in questionable theories and practices to maintain whites' power in society and the discipline. [pp.348-349, footnote removed.]



In the essay, Gordon outlined the humanistic dimensions of Du Bois's research methods, such as are found in works like "The Study of the Negro Problems" (1898). Such humanistic aspects of social-scientific research set Du Bois apart from many of his contemporaries. Du Bois stressed the need to conceptualize Blacks as rational and volitional human agents (subjects), rather than as passive objects of scholarly inquiry. Such a humanistic conception of those whom scholars study has implications for the methodology to be used. In that context, Gordon writes:
A striking feature of Du Bois's recommendations for rigorous study, however, is that in the midst of all his almost positivistic conceptions of objectivity in the study of black folk, there are also the hermeneutical considerations and the experiential considerations of looking at blacks from the inside. These are concerns that Du Bois himself deploys in another essay from the period, "On the Conservation of the Races".... [1898]
Gordon elaborates further on the idea of an "inside" (i.e., an existential phenomenological) perspective on African American life experiences: By raising the question of black problems from blacks' point of view, Du Bois raised the question of an "inside" that required an approach to social phenomena that puts the theorist in a position to break down the gap between himself or herself and the subjects of study. For in principle if the theorist can imagine the black point of view as a point of view that can be communicated, then already a gap between the theorist and the black subject of study has been bridged. The theorist, whether white or of color, must work with the view of communicability and, simultaneously, a process of interrogation that will bring forth what black subjects are willing to divulge. In short, the method presupposes agency, freedom, and responsibility, which transforms the epistemological expectations of inquiry. From the "outside," one could receive limited data. From the "inside," one could, as well, receive limited data. Combined, one receives "good data, "solid data, "rigorously acquired" data, but never "complete" data. It is by staying attuned to the incompleteness of all data with regard to human beings that one makes the approach humanistic. It is a method that reveals that, when it comes to the human being, there will always be more to learn and, hence, more to research.
Lewis Gordon also has a faculty webpage.

DuBois's historical writings can be broken up into three groups -- the social scientific, the cultural materialist, and the Marxist -- each marking a phase in DuBois's development. These parallel the stages of the historical profession's early development outlined by [Peter] Novick in That Noble Dream: first, the emergence of the notion of objectivity, with its belief in "facts" and the inductive method; second, the gradual emergence of a "genteel insurgency" among Progressive historians promoting deductive reasoning; and last, "the stalling of the professional project" in "divergence and dissent" in the period following World War One. While DuBois paralleled these changes, he either remained apart from the profession's development or, when involved, was virtually unrecognized for his contributions. In part, this was because at each stage of his development DuBois consciously deviated from the work of his white counterparts.
DuBois's early writings, reflected in The Suppression of the African Slave- Trade and The Philadelphia Negro, resembled the output of many scientific historians working at this time, except that in both books he only half-suppressed his idealism and allowed tensions and subtleties to surface that would seldom be evident in other historians` works. [. . . . ]
DuBois's writings during the second phase, particularly The Souls of Black Folk, John Brown, and The Negro, were "insurgency" plain and simple and not the least "genteel," even though they incorporated ideas that resembled the cultural materialism to be found among some other Progressives. [. . . . ]
The third period, reaching its fruition with the publication of Black Reconstruction in America and Black Folk [Then and Now], witnessed DuBois's rejection of many Progressive notions and the adoption of Marxist terminology, taking him down paths that few, if any, white American historians were willing to follow. [. . . . ]
Note 1: The end notes were omitted from the quoted passages.
Note 2: Full citation: Robert Gregg. 1998. "Giant Steps: W.E.B. DuBois and the Historical Enterprise." Pp.77-99 in Michael B. Katz and Thomas Sugrue (Eds.), W.E.B. Du Bois, Race and the City: The Philadelphia Negro and its Legacy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.


In what follows we will examine a series of Socratic themes in the writings of W.E.B. DuBois: the paradoxical status of images, potentially enslaving and liberating, and the nature of liberal education; the appeal to nature as a basis for a critique of corrupt customs; and DuBois’s response to the charge of elitism, a charge often leveled against Socrates as well. Such comparisons are commonly thought to be useful for the way they mutually illumine distinct authors; in this case, the comparison requires a re-thinking of common assumptions about each thinker and about the issues that connect and divide them. [p.38; Footnote omitted]

We must manifest a disciplinary and professional agenda, a platform of intellectual reparations that seeks to reconcile the racial and professional injuries endured by Black and Brown scholars — from Du Bois to Joyce Ladner to Horace Clayton to current sociologists of colour who remain subject to similar cynicism and dismissiveness that hovered over Du Bois. This brings me to this essay's subtitle or counter title: for coloured scholars who consider suicide when our rainbows are not enough. Du Bois' life and work reveal that understanding, conveying, and centring the Black experience are not limiting our science, but instead clarifying and expanding it and its various purposes. I take stock of Du Bois' personal and professional example not only because he thrived and survived in the post-Emancipation academy, but also because the patterns of mistreatment and diminishing of black scholars and black scholarship persist. [pp.1382-1383]
Note that a free membership may be required at Academia.edu for downloading the 672 kb PDF.

Appreciating more clearly how Du Bois's understanding of the black intellectual vanguard presupposes his concept of the Negro as a real ontical being requires a more careful interrogation of his notions about the proper socio-political function of the black artist. Succinctly stated, that function was to create in different media as accurate as possible a representation of Blacks' unfailing moral strength in the face of the daily struggle with abjection at the hands of white America. [....] For Du Bois, artists, and especially literary artists, where ideologues, not as producers of false consciousness, but as producers of a whole new body of knowledge derived from and constitutive of the lived experience of the Negro. Black art should serve black solidarity. (p.264)
Du Bois's ideas of vanguards and of inclusive democracy for African Americans required that double consciousness be overcome. As Dr. Judy writes: Recall that in The Souls of Black Folk Du Bois displaces the Negro as an object of positive scientific analysis for the Negro as a self-conscious thinking ontical being. [....] [The concept of double consciousness] serves two strategic (in fact rhetorical) functions. On the one hand, it enables Du Bois to exhibit the Negro as a self-conscious thinking subject. On the other hand, it is the figure of collective psychosis, resulting from social injustice. By the same token, double-consciousness establishes the heterogeneous origins of Negro and American identity. The psychosis of double-consciousness is not the result of a prior unified identity becoming fragmented[;] it results from the failure to merge two heterogeneous consciousnesses into one identity. At this point, Du Bois is quite clear that pluralistic democracy dictates the annihilation of double-consciousness.... (p.268)
For Du Bois, such an overcoming of double consciousness was vitally important for the vanguards, the members of the Talented Tenth, so that they could provide the leadership necessary to the struggles against oppression. Dr. Judy further elaborates on the tasks of the Talented Tenth: The merger of the Negro's double-consciousness into a truer self called for in The Souls of Black Folk is not so much a merger as the accommodation of the political will to racial identity. Positing the universality of the subject of race as an abstraction, Du Bois discovers the psychology of the Negro as the case for thoroughly calculating the generation and effect of cultural representations, and displacing the speculative interests of social positivism with a figure of the racial subject as the legitimate grounds for organizing the social. [....] [T]he legitimate work of the black intellectual is to both represent the essential humanity of black folk, and to create the conditions in which that humanity is recognizable as valuable to civil society. (p.271; emphasis in original; endnote removed)
Nevertheless, Dr. Judy argues that Du Bois's concept of intellectual vanguardism as espoused in Souls actually undermined—was antinomic to, in Judy's words—the concept of democracy that he also espoused in numerous works. Intellectual vanguardism was antinomic to the democratic pluralism of individuals as equal participants because the Talented Tenth were elites who, in my interpretation of Dr. Judy, did not speak *as* members of the majority of African Americans, but rather spoke *in place of* the majority. They accordingly became the only "legitimate representatives of the race" 


by Alessandra Lorini [in ACHAB: Rivista di Antropologia, N.11 (Novembre 2007): 34-46]. [To read this article one must download the
Lorini notes the similarities and differences between

This is a ~50K PDF file.
Using extensive quotations from Du Bois's works, Miller examines how Du Bois connected race, education, and political economy with varying emphases over the span of his life. Also considered are
W.E.B. Du Bois, surely one of the leading public intellectuals of the twentieth century, occupied a position at the forefront of progressive thought on nearly every issue he tackled via three topics he repeatedly addressed throughout his life, i.e.: using education as a tool for creating a more socially responsible and just society, dismantling racial inequality and redressing economic imbalances while slowly changing people's attitudes from being centered on selfishness and material prosperity to being guided by a greater sense of social altruism.

[O]ur work needs to be political, engaged, rigorous—Du Bois has paved the way for us in his path breaking, brilliant body of scholarship and activism. The scholarship of the oppressed, and those seeking a more just world, must be more scientific and rigorous than that of the guardian of the status quo precisely because there is so much at stake.
The essay was published in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 18 January 2016.

In his abstract, which is reproduced here in its entirety and verbatim, Morrison wrote:
This study evaluates the place of W.E.B. Du Bois in the progressive movement in early-twentieth century America. Through his sociological works, including The Philadelphia Negro and the Atlanta Conferences, Du Bois tried to create an intellectual blueprint to reform of Arnenca. Initially his plan had a self-help foundation, and he identified churches, schools and secret societies as institutions that should lead this effort. Du Bois compiled an overwhelming amount of data which suggested that black poverty and suffering was due not to racial inferiority, but a negative social environment. As his work progressed Du Bois assigned increasing blame to whites for helping create the negative social environment that blacks faced.
The first chapter outlines the challenges Du Bois faced in attempting to create his reform program. In post-Reconstruction America, blacks saw an erosion of their civil rights which undercut their efforts to improve their standard of living. Languishing as the poorest people in society, many blacks fled the rural South to start over in the urban industrial centres. Du Bois endeavoured to study the new environment blacks faced while seeking to challenge white racism. Most Americans, including academics, clergymen and physicians, believed blacks inferior and lacking the potential to improve. The study's second chapter evaluates The Philadelphia Negro, a work of critical importance, in which as [sic] Du Bois tried to educate reform-minded whites about the true nature of the black community. Throughout his work, Du Bois encouraged blacks to undertake self-help programs that would improve the negative social conditions they faced. The final chapter demonstrates that the Atlanta Conference studies allowed Du Bois to expand on the themes he introduced in The Philadelphia Negro. Over time his views evolved, and he came to argue that greed inherent in laissez-faire economics motivated whites to exploit poor blacks. Slowly, Du Bois modified his reform plans, envisioning an expanded role for government in reform efforts. Although Du Bois influenced many settlement workers and reformers, and joined the NAACP in 1910, he never saw his ideas gain widespread acceptance. [p. i]
The first chapter outlines the challenges Du Bois faced in attempting to create his reform program. In post-Reconstruction America, blacks saw an erosion of their civil rights which undercut their efforts to improve their standard of living. Languishing as the poorest people in society, many blacks fled the rural South to start over in the urban industrial centres. Du Bois endeavoured to study the new environment blacks faced while seeking to challenge white racism. Most Americans, including academics, clergymen and physicians, believed blacks inferior and lacking the potential to improve. The study's second chapter evaluates The Philadelphia Negro, a work of critical importance, in which as [sic] Du Bois tried to educate reform-minded whites about the true nature of the black community. Throughout his work, Du Bois encouraged blacks to undertake self-help programs that would improve the negative social conditions they faced. The final chapter demonstrates that the Atlanta Conference studies allowed Du Bois to expand on the themes he introduced in The Philadelphia Negro. Over time his views evolved, and he came to argue that greed inherent in laissez-faire economics motivated whites to exploit poor blacks. Slowly, Du Bois modified his reform plans, envisioning an expanded role for government in reform efforts. Although Du Bois influenced many settlement workers and reformers, and joined the NAACP in 1910, he never saw his ideas gain widespread acceptance. [p. i]

. . . Du Bois provides us with multiple instances of double consciousness. In each case, African-Americans are shown to be struggling to achieve themselves, due to the enforced divisions and roadblocks of white culture. What Du Bois presents here are short, powerful looks at the struggle to be recognized as fully human, a struggle due to the horrible crime of racism. The concept of double consciousness plays itself out in a variety of ways--- from the agonizing worry a father feels in raising his son in a white world to the failed policies of segregation and the creation of ghettos in American cities--- always with the same devastating effect, the compromising of identity, and yet with a new identity that is forming and emerging. The African-American is forced to struggle to be him- or herself in America, Du Bois shows, but they have done so heroically and with deep humanity throughout their plight.
Next, Morse describes DuBois's position on "second sight" -- a concept philosophically related to double consciousness -- and the significance of second sight as an epistemological perspective for understanding a White-dominated America from the vantage point(s) of oppressed African Americans. The author also highlights DuBois's views on imperialism and his (rather unorthodox) Marxism.

This essay will introduce some of his writings on American social history and attempt to show how he evolved his method of approach. He began as a social scientist trained in the best institutions of learning that bourgeois society had to offer; but by the 1930s he had embraced Marxism in all its essentials. The key in this transformation was his striving to uplift black folks and to achieve a "clear view of Western Civilization as a whole". [p.37]
Richards analyzed various works by Du Bois, approaching them choronologically: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, The Philadelphia Negro, The Souls of Black Folk, John Brown, The Negro, and Darkwater. The author concluded that section of Du Bois's earlier writings as follows: Du Bois broke out of the confines of his classical education. His view on social history had been worked out in the detailed studies of black America while he was at Atlanta. Now he viewed this work in a world setting — in view of the whole sweep of modem capitalism. He had come to regard the role of the proletariat, the world proletariat which was in its majority colored, as the force destined to end the oppressive system of capitalism. He saw that without comprehending the central role of black workers in Western Civilization, it was not possible to understand that civilization at all. [p.56]
Richards then turned to the later writings that were the culmination of his Du Bois's development of a Marxist framework, including Black Reconstruction, and Black Folk, Then and Now. Richards wrote: Black Reconstruction is a social history of the process which began the most-important phase of the American quest for world domination. Du Bois placed the race question in the center of his story. While the world-wide ramifications of the failure of labor had been outlined in The Negro in 1915, it was not until 1939 and his book Black Folk, Then and Now that Du Bois returned to the world scene in an effort to expand his exposition of the centrality of black people to Western Civilization. While this book covered the same ground as The Negro, it was entirely rewritten to take in the recent findings of anthropology and Du Bois's fully-developed world view. In 1939 the West still insisted that Africa had no history, so Du Bois wrote Black Folk, Then and Now to counter this misconception. Whereas in his earlier work The Negro [sic: no underlining] he had spent a great deal of effort in simply describing the varied cultural life and history of Africa, Du Bois now undertook to accompany this description with an analysts of how Western capitalism had distorted the economy and folkways and monopolized the land of black people the world over. Black Folk, Then and Now included a brief discussion of slavery, emancipation, and Reconstruction in the US in which Du Bois capsulized [sic] his argument in Black Reconstruction. [p.61]
Richards ended his article with an analysis of Dusk of Dawn. He wrote that Du Bois ultimately changed his views over time because events required a different — more Marxist — analysis if Blacks were to be uplifted: Yet the consensus of the age, the ideal of progress and the promise of bourgeois civilization, faded in his mind, as well as in the minds of so many other black thinkers, as the quest of imperialism for colonies became increasingly brutal and obvious, and as racism intensified in an increasingly-educated world. In Du Bois's chapter "Science and Empire", he discusses how the world forced him to abandon the pretenses of modern social science to find social counterparts of natural laws that applied to social life. For in the oppressive world or black America the only social law was historical change and the main truth was the imperative struggle to survive. Du Bois in his way, and others in so many different ways, moved toward the understanding that racism was no mere accident but a foundation stone of Western Civilization. [pp.61-61]
Note that various issues of the journal Radical America are available as part of the Brown University Library's Center for Digital Scholarship [Radical America page].



W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) used his gifts as a social scientist and writer to fight for equal rights for black Americans throughout his life. In 1904, for part of Census Bulletin #8, Du Bois wrote an analysis of black farmers in the southern United States. Du Bois' analysis used statistics to counter the racist narrative of the day and showed how black farmers used their land and agricultural skills to make a better life for themselves and their families.
A link to Du Bois's The Negro Farmer [PDF] is included.


In the essay Veroli argued that a key limitation in the classical exposition of materialism (e.g., classical Marxism) was that it conceptualized culture -- and by implication, imagination -- as part of a rigid base / superstructure model of society. In such a model, culture was considered part of the superstructure and deemed to be "mere" illusion; culture thereby was of a secondary epistemic status to the essential reality of the economic base. As a consequence, argued the author, the base / superstructure model limited our understanding of the role played by culture in perpetuating capitalism, as well as its role in creating a counter-public sphere, wherein multiple experiences and perspectives can be expressed creatively in opposition to capitalism.
Veroli's central focus was on C.L.R. James, but he provided an extensive analysis of W.E.B. Du Bois as an important precursor to James. Veroli argued that Du Bois's philosophical significance lay in how he understood reality to include more than physically discernible phenomena: the reality faced by persons of color also included socially-constituted phenomenon, such as the reality of racism and its effects. Regarding Du Bois, Veroli wrote:
[ . . . ] In brilliant pragmatist fashion he reveals the reality of raced subjectivity in terms of its consequences rather than on the basis of any biological, cultural, or psychological essence. This is perhaps where Du Bois's philosophical contribution is revealed at its clearest. He realizes, like few other thinkers in a philosophical tradition that extends back two-and-a-half millennia that appearance is real enough, that becoming is not subordinate to being or, to put the matter in more contemporary terms, that it is not because reality is socially constructed that it can therefore be consigned to the dumping ground of illusion. The reality of a symbolic nexus -- such as the African Diaspora -- is not simply to be judged on the basis of its correspondence to an actually existing referent but also on its effectivity in terms of registers other than a purely epistemological one (political, historical, cultural, etc…). That the concept of 'race,' for instance, is meaningless from a strictly biological standpoint in no way changes the fact that it has real effects quite independently of its epistemic status. Imaginary realities exist quite as surely as material ones, the only difference between the two being in their modalities of effect.
From this principle flows much of Du Bois's political activism from the thirties to the end of his life in 1963. For it is also true that common history and struggle do not, in and of themselves, mean anything if there is not, added to them, a common structure of affect, an imaginary of social struggle. Du Bois's work as a journalist and as an activist during the late forties and fifties would be devoted exclusively to the task of constructing such an imaginary, though he was building on previous achievement rather than starting from scratch. In his vision of Pan Africanism he would stress, over and over again, anti-colonial and working class solidarities, work with trade-unions, unwaveringly support African labor struggles, and consistently oppose European imperialism as well as the pretensions to global power of his native land.
[Footnotes removed]
[Note: Another online essay by Nicholas Veroli, "How a Fiction Became the Truth: Five Thesis on Cogito, Imagination, and Modernity," was published in Ijele: Art eJournal, Issue 4 (2002).]

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND DU BOIS

[B]ehind the division lay the peculiar chemistry of the dispositions of two men, one pragmatic and controlling, the other principled and solitary. For a time, they worked together, until each came gradually to believe that the other had betrayed the cause of racial uplift -- and the personal giving of himself.

We should have had a wedding between what Booker T. Washington was saying and what DuBois was saying. Instead we called Washington a traditionalist and DuBois a modernist and did not see that there was no conflict between one and the other.

Note: One can access a limited amount of free online articles; after reaching the maximum amount, one must subscribe in order to access the online articles at The Atlantic. Updated link and note added on 1 June 2024.
This interview was conducted at Du Bois' home in Ghana in early 1963. As presented via the direct quotations of the article, the interview seemed to emphasize Du Bois's views of and experiences with Booker T. Washington. In addition, McGill added much commentary on Du Bois' editorship of The Crisis magazine and his "polemic excesses", including activities later in his life that situated Du Bois out of the mainstream of political life in the U.S.A.
Regarding Booker T. Washington, Du Bois indicated that he "admired much about him." Du Bois provided his evaluation of the consequences of B.T.W.'s strategy:
"As Washington began to attain stature as leader of his new, small, and struggling school at Tuskegee," DuBois continued, "he gave total emphasis to economic progress through industrial and vocational education. He believed that if the Negro could be taught skills and find jobs, and if others could become small landowners, a yeoman class would develop that would, in time, be recognized as worthy of what already was their civil rights, and that they would then be fully accepted as citizens. So he appealed to moderation, and he publicly postponed attainment of political rights and accepted the system of segregation." After some commentary by McGill on the historical context of Washington, Du Bois' thoughts on B.T.W. are again presented:
"As I came to see it," said DuBois, "Washington bartered away much that was not his to barter. Certainly I did not believe that the skills of an artisan bricklayer, plasterer, or shoemaker, and the good farmer would cause the white South, grimly busy with disfranchisement and separation, to change the direction of things. I realized the need for what Washington was doing. Yet it seemed to me he was giving up essential ground that would be hard to win back. I don't think Washington saw this until the last years of his life. He kept hoping. But before he died he must have known that he and his hopes had been rejected and that he had, without so intending, helped make stronger -- and more fiercely defended -- a separation and rejection that made a mockery of all he had hoped and dreamed. I felt grief for him when I learned of his death because I believe he died in sorrow and a sense of betrayal."



* The web site visitor is asked to decide: "Who had the better vision for improving the conditions of African Americans in the early 1900s, Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Du Bois?" The visitor chooses one of the two and is prompted to reflect on the implications or situations confronting African Americans in that era. Subsequent pages provide further historical details as well as a discussion by scholars Donald L. Miller, Waldo E. Martin, Jr., and Virginia Scharff.

In a 1907 issue of the periodical The World To-Day we find a photograph of Du Bois within a section entitled "Protectors of the Public" (pp. 5-8). That section contain photos of three others "Protectors." The only text within the section are the anonymously written captions. The caption to
W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS — THE SPOKESMAN OF NEGRO IDEALISM
Professor Du Bois differs from Booker Washington in emphasizing the negro's need of higher education as well as industrial training. His book, "The Souls of Black Folk," is a powerful appeal for the rights of the negro as a man rather than as a workman
RW's Note 1: "Negro" is not capitalized in the original caption. The photo (a side-view of his shoulders and head facing right) has this acknowledgment: "From a photograph, copyright, 1904, by J. E. Purdy, Boston" [punctuation as found in the original text].
Professor Du Bois differs from Booker Washington in emphasizing the negro's need of higher education as well as industrial training. His book, "The Souls of Black Folk," is a powerful appeal for the rights of the negro as a man rather than as a workman
RW's Note 2: The full citation is: The World To-Day, v. 12, no. 1 (January 1907): p. 6. (Other details about this particular digitized work can be found at its "More-about-this-book" page at Google Books.)
RW's Note 3: Immediately preceding the photographs is what seems to be an editorial entitled "'To Hell with Such a Law'" (pp. 3-4). It lambasts "demagogues" spewing race hatred, while also saying about the North: "[f]or the most part it is even ready to admit that taking the uneducated negro [sic] out of politics is a wise move."
RW's Note 4: Within the "Protectors of the Public" section other photographs are included: Franklin Murphy, president of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers; John E. Wilkie, chief of the U.S. Secret Service; and Lillian M.N. Stevens, president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
RW's Note 5: Alternate digitized version of this issue of The World To-Day: DuBois's photo on p. 6.

SHIRLEY GRAHAM DUBOIS (1896-1977)
Shirley Graham was an activist, author, and dramatist in her own right before marrying W.E.B. Du Bois in 1951. Together, they continued their political activities both in the U.S.A. and via their travels abroad. Below are various online resources pertaining to Shirley Graham DuBois: biographies about her, her primary works, obituaries, secondary sources by later scholars, and miscellaneous materials (e.g., photographs as well as a newspaper article on their honeymoon). A sample of her poetry is also provided here. 
• "Black Man's Music" was published in The Crisis, 40: 8 (August 1933): 178-179. [Note: a small part of page 179 at Google books is illegible].
• "Oberlin and the Negro was published in The Crisis, 42:4 (April 1935): 118, 124.
• "Maturity (To Our Congressman)", a poem published in The Crisis, 42:9 (September 1935): 284. [The full text can be found below].
• Paul Robeson, Citizen Of The World (NY: Julian Messner, Inc., 1946). [Citation page at the Internet Archive].
• There Was Once a Slave... The Heroic Story of Frederick Douglass. (NY: Julian Messner, Inc., 1947).
• Jean Baptiste Pointe De Sable, Founder Of Chicago (NY: Julian Messner, Inc., 1953). [Citation page at the Internet Archive].
• "Introduction" to the Jubilee Edition of W.E.B Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1953 by the Blue Heron Press.
• Booker T. Washington, Educator Of Hand, Head, and Heart (NY: Julian Messner, Inc., 1955; 11th Printing 1967). [Citation page at the Internet Archive].

• Anonymous biography at the repository of Shirley Graham's papers in the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University [Full web page title: "Du Bois, Shirley Graham, 1896-1977. Papers, 1865-1998 (inclusive), 1905-1975 (bulk): A Finding Aid" (Dated: March 2003)].
• Dr. Clayborne Carson of Stanford University lectured on Shirley Graham, as well as W.E.B. Du Bois and others, as part of his Fall 2007 "Introduction to African-American History" course (HIST 166). In the videotaped
• "Shirley Graham DuBois" by Carrie Golus, was originally published in Contemporary Black Biography, 1999, a periodical from The Gale Group. The biography is available online at anwers.com and at encyclopedia.com.
• "DuBois, Shirley Graham (1896-1977)" by Errin Jackson. Page at the site, The Black Past Remembered and Reclaimed.

• "Shirley Graham Du Bois: Composer and Playwright" by Bernard L. Peterson, Jr. published in The Crisis, 84:5 (May 1977): pp.177-179 [Start page at Google Books]. • Alesia Elaine McFadden wrote a Dissertation entitled The Artistry and Activism of Shirley Graham du Bois: A Twentieth Century African American Torchbearer (University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009). View the

• "Mrs. Shirley DuBois Dies on China Visit" [by Anonymous]. Washington Afro-American (Red Edition), 85th Year, No.67 (April 5, 1977): p.1,col.2 and p.2,col.3. [At Google News Archive].
• "Shirley Graham Du Bois Dies in Peking China" [Anonymously written]. Jet, 57:4 (April 14, 1977): p.18. [At Google Books].

• "Late Minister, Red Tape, Delay DuBois Honeymoon; Famed Couple Not Upset by Mishaps" by B. M. Phillips: this is an article from The Afro American (Baltimore) newspaper of March 10, 1951 (59th Year, No. 31 at p.1,col.3 and p.2,col.7). [At Google News Archive].
• Photographs of "Du Bois, Shirley Graham" (and W.E.B. Du Bois): these are accessible via the W.E.B. Du Bois Library located at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and are part of the library's Special Collections & University Archives' online exhibit and resource entitled "Du Bois Central".

"Maturity (To Our Congressman)" was published in The Crisis, 42:9 (September 1935) at p.284. [At Google Books].
[Note: Line length and breaks, as well as punctuation, have been retained from the original in The Crisis, although in many cases it appears as if such were used because the poem was printed, as with the other items, in a rather narrow column on the periodical's page].
Maturity
(To Our Congressman)
By Shirley Graham
I am a Negro: (To Our Congressman)
By Shirley Graham
(Well do we know)
Had I been born in France or Spain
Or in that land of burning sands and
copper skies.
I should have been a Frenchman, Span-
iard or a Mussulman;
I should have bowed 'neath lofty domes
While cross my dusky face stole jeweled
light deep set in solemn measure.
Or, in some snow-white mosque,
Outlined by towering minarets,
I should have knelt.
But here clear chimes bade me go on my
way,
I prayed apart and loudly sang their
liturgy—
But to my music.
I ate in kitchen of the scraps they left,
I did not over-eat; the dog was fat.
But I was doing what he could not do—
Growing to manhood.
Now, that I am a man,
Gaunt, lean, with muscles hard and rip-
pling,
I look afar:
You sing America—My lines are blurred,
I am a Negro.
[ End of poem ]

OTHER ASPECTS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS' LIFE










Du Bois has become newly prominent because, despite his geriatric dogmatism, his thinking for most of his life was supple and original enough to reconcile what others saw as contradictions. He espoused African identity and American identity, self-improvement and integration, culture and politics. Today, a bouquet of these philosophies flowers among black thinkers and activists. All of them can trace their roots to Du Bois.





The centennial of The Crisis calls our attention to its understudied role in twentieth-century American history. In turn, commemorative reflection invites students of history to explore Du Bois’s analysis of the black church, for example, and observe how he creatively gave readers a black Christ with whom they could find common ground. Finally, investigating religion and The Crisis at the dawn of the twenty-first century reminds us that religious ideas, religious language, and religious identity are historically contingent, culturally constructed, and endlessly fascinating.

the appearance of a Black Christ challeng[ing] a Caucasian Christianity that bolstered inequality and supported a segregated church. Du Bois's Jesus came preaching a message of liberation, and embodied an ethics of inclusion that displayed the democratic promise at the core of American identity. (p.423)
Dr. Sinitiere also suggested pedagogical techniques that can be used in secondary schools and colleges to help students learn about early 20th Century American history via those religious texts by Du Bois.


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