With this file I present my editor's introduction to the proposed anthology of W.E.B. Du Bois's readings on research and activism. The hypertext version contains the following items and functions, some of which do not apply to a printed (or PDF) version.
i1.
In order to document the points being made, internal links connect parts of the introduction to the primary sources. Internal links are clickable and are designated in the introduction by source names (ex.,
{SBFI}
), which one can visit, or else by source paragraph numbers (ex.,
[¶ 4]
) and [Return], either of which one can click to step back to the previous spot in the introduction.
i2.
Notes, originally concealed but displayable, elaborate upon ideas and topics. There are two types of notes. First, I have attached "footnotes" to some of the paragraphs of the introduction. Second, I have added annotations to some of the paragraphs of the primary sources. All notes are indicated by a gray button , which will display as after the note's contents are revealed. The printed (or PDF) version displays all initially hidden notes.
i3.
This draft project presents five primary sources by Du Bois. Each source provides the original publication; its historical context; its significance for Du Bois and for research/activism; and editorial notes, such as the provenance of the physical document and/or details about its digital presentation. Also, within the text are annotations covering persons, institutions, events, issues, and ideas—items perhaps not covered by Du Bois. The annotations are marked by show and hide buttons. In addition, a section on suggested resources, both online and printed, closes the document. I anticipate adding a few more details to some of the sources.
i4.
A primary source (or sources) that will be accessible as full text or excerpt within a final version of the book is indicated below by "{Future-Link/s}".
i5.
A bibliography lists the primary sources to be anthologized and a bibliography of secondary sources cited in the editor's introduction.
i6.
Four appendices provide further discussion of topics important for interpreting Du Bois: pragmatism, Darwinism, uncertainty and unknowability, and structures and agency. A fifth appendix suggests resources on his life and thought.
I recognize that the digital platform used by Lever Press will differ from what I have created. For the sake of reviewing my project, this file presents only one possible way to render a born-digital work. I appreciate your interest in my work on W.E.B. Du Bois.
— Robert W. Williams < rwilliams@bennett.edu >
Why This Anthology Now?
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois—or W.E.B. Du Bois as he is more often called—becomes a public intellectual even before the term itself becomes commonplace. His life spans the years 1868 and 1963. During his most productive period, from the 1890s until his death in Ghana on 27 August 1963, he pursues an intense agenda of research in its diverse forms. Likewise in diverse ways, he actively promotes the ongoing struggles for racial and social justice. Although not the first to join research with activism, Du Bois nonetheless brings the two together as engaged scholarship, uniting them in a unique but varying relationship over the course of his long life.
Some readers perhaps might consider it necessary that I answer several vital questions.
a.
Why do, or why should, we study the relationship between research and activism? After all, in such a relationship danger looms: to what extent can researchers orient their studies to directly address specific social issues and still do objective (or is it also neutral?) studies?
b.
Why frame the relationship between research and activism as research/activism, or alternately, the research/activism nexus? Perhaps, the use of a forward slash/virgule might needlessly confound the danger mentioned with regard to the first question.
c.
And lastly, why should we in the first instance study W.E.B. Du Bois with regard to research/activism? Some might argue that his efforts and methods, while useful for his times and places, require updating to later (if not necessarily newer) methods of today.
Addressing those questions gets at the core of research and activism and of their intersection. It also gets at the heart of Du Bois's own role. For my purposes here I define social research broadly, as Du Bois himself does in various texts. The various professional academic disciplines of history and the social sciences, as well as their precursors, have long sought to better understand human actions, elites, institutions, beliefs, and social relationships. Historians and social scientists often utilize different methods, but for their many projects empirically related and evidence-based methods are considered instruments of knowledge production, challenging dogma and unsubstantiated beliefs. Moreover, both take as their object of inquiry human behaviors and human organizations as well as the ideas, norms, and ideals that humans associate with their efforts to live in the world.
Likewise, activists involve themselves with humans living in the world. Whereas researchers in the conventional sense seek primarily to understand, activists orient their efforts intentionally to correct unfair policies, norms, and practices. Activists often seek to correct the unequal, inequitable, or oppressive conditions in which groups, individuals, and communities live, love, and work. Activists typically inform themselves to a greater or lesser extent by information, perhaps produced by researchers, but at the very least generated by those affected. Such is the conventional framing of the respective visions and missions of scholarly research and activism.
Some would argue that the two can never be joined. Research must be kept separate from political policymaking and social reform efforts. Max Weber in his famous "Politics as a Vocation" highlights the classic defining of the borders between the two realms of research and policymaking. It means separating one's role as a researcher from one's role as a citizen or policy advocate. For Weber, teachers and by extension social researchers discuss what can and cannot be done based on the data and the knowledge gained therefrom. Teachers (and researchers) in their scholarly roles do not express their own particular views on what should be done politically. Rather, they can present to politicians the possible consequences, as determined by the evidence, of any given policy option (Weber 1949 and 1958).
Du Bois initially embraces the conventional idea of researching first and then, with the knowledge gained, acting towards social reforms. Much of Du Bois's education at Fisk, Harvard, and Friedrich-Wilhelm III Universität in Berlin sustains such a conventional separation. As opposed to most of his White professors and White students, and even most White contemporaries, Du Bois addresses issues of race and racial injustice via the research he undertakes. He energetically places himself in public forums to discuss his findings, or significantly, to discuss that his findings and those of others undermine the racist edifices established by the research conclusions of still other scholars. Also in opposition to the practices of many social researchers of his day, and often even ours in the 21st Century, Du Bois questions the bases of social research and its practices.
As regards politically engaged scholarship, Du Bois stands out not only because he conducts very extensive, detailed, and far-reaching social scientific and historical studies, but also because, and even despite so much effort invested in research, he offers insightful criticisms of the very types of conventional social research that he is pursuing. Indeed, his critiques of the limitations of conventional social research continue to grow over the years of his life. Although he never wavers in his support for social research, he nevertheless puts forth his critiques in various texts spanning the decades. Accordingly, we are able to glimpse, while not necessarily in chronologically arranged texts, the aspects of his critique and his reconfiguration of the relationship between social research and activism. This editor's introduction, and certainly the anthology as well, will be a reconstruction of Du Bois's own understanding of the relationship between research and activism as someone who practiced, and intertwined in various ways, both pursuits. In short, we will be examining Du Bois as he speaks to research/activism in his time and indeed as his legacy speaks to ours.
This introduction covers in distinct sections the three phases (or programs), as enumerated by Du Bois himself, by which he approaches the relationship between research and activism. Each program that Du Bois expresses does proceed chronologically but overlaps with the previous one. The transition between each stage raises the philosophical and practical dimensions that characterize that particular stage and which prompts his shift to the next phase. Each transition occupies its own separate section below. [A Note to the Editorial Board: This paragraph is intended for the readers of the final version of the anthology. It does not cover the information contained within the Message that began this file. As a born-digital project some sort of help file likely will be needed to orient the reader to the navigation features.]
What follows is the Table of Contents for the sections of this [demonstration] project. Designated throughout this Introduction by a TOC placed above the section headings, its hyperlinks provide a way to navigate the html page.
This introduction does not cover everything that might be desirous to know about Du Bois. For example, the introduction does not cover Du Bois's life in depth. There are numerous enlightening biographies available. (For a listing of useful materials read {}: Resources on W.E.B. Du Bois's Life and Works.) Moreover, the introduction does not discuss the specific research techniques used by Du Bois (see, for example, Rabaka 2010; Wright II 2016). Also, I will not detail every year or every text that might relevant to the anthology. Du Bois's body of work is too vast for that, because many texts, both published and unpublished, would be pertinent. However, I will stress texts that are among the many possible relevant ones, texts that many readers will recognize as highly cited by scholars and very much a part of the discussion on Du Bois in many academic fields. In addition, this anthology includes several, perhaps unrecognized, texts that can become part of the Du Bois canon.
Let us continue the journey with a vignette.
The Obscure and Evocative "Souls" Essay
The vignette presented here derives from Du Bois's "The Souls of Black Folk" essay of 1904, an essay that expresses the tensions between conventional research and activism. He of course is well known for the book of the same name, but far fewer know about his self-reflection essay.
[Note —Background to the "Souls" Essay, 1904]
Camillus Phillips, Associate Editor of the periodical The Independent, writes a letter to Du Bois in April 1904, requesting a self-review of The Souls of Black Folk (Phillips 1904). Phillips indicates that the author Andrew Lang previously has written that authors should review their own books (Lang 1903). I could not find a reply from Du Bois in the Credo repository. His response seems to be the essay that is published in the periodical.
The associate editor of The Independent also has asked several other authors to write self-reviews of their respective books. The pieces are published together in a November 1904 issue of the periodical, which contains a section entitled "Every Man His Own Reviewer". It presents the self-reflections of the following authors and their works: Andrew Lang, "The Valet's Tragedy" (p.1148); Thomas Dixon, Jr., "The One Woman" (p.1149); Upton Sinclair, "Manassas" (pp.1149-1151); Gelett Burgess, "More Goops" (p.1151); W.E. Burghardt DuBois, "The Souls of Black Folk" (p.1152); and W.J. Ghent, "Mass and Class" (pp.1152-1153).
[End of Note .]
Du Bois writes in the "Souls" essay:
One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles. [SBFI 1904: ¶ 1]
The tone in the "Souls" essay suggests ambivalence. Du Bois writes as an advocate of traditional research and its support for neutral analysis, but he also indicates that the conventions are not adequate to convey the experiences of oppression, which he also feels compelled to express. The White readers of Souls need to know about what he is writing about in the book. We read two paragraphs later:
[....] Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. In each essay I sought to speak from within— to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him. [SBFI 1904: ¶ 3]
Du Bois here assumes that the dichotomies of subjective and objective, and of knower and known, are correct aspects of researching social reality. He writes that he is aware that his words in Souls will be less persuasive by the usual, presumably more European, standards. Du Bois expresses his embodiment as conveyed in passages about the blood of his fathers and about the book's style as "tropical—African." [¶ 5] (Read the entire "Souls" essay {} below).
The 'Souls' essay, so seldom examined, provides some insights into Du Bois's early thoughts on research and activism. Only one overarching method, that of the scientific method, is valid to produce knowledge. Moreover, as Du Bois directly indicates, he as one of the African diaspora seems to be too parochial and limited in outlook to be cosmopolitan. Obviously, these are not the images that come to mind when we consider Du Bois as an engaged scholar, as knowledgeable as he is resolute. Over the course of this introduction we will glimpse how Du Bois's research/activism nexus tackles the issues, expressing his thoughts in a multitude of writings.
Du Bois as a Scholar Activist
Du Bois's relevance as a scholar and activist outlives the span of his life. Born in 1868 in the Western Massachusetts city of Great Barrington. Du Bois considers himself a race man who uses his scholarship and activism to promote African American rights for justice and democracy. Indeed, even during his last years he was working on the Encyclopedia Africana in Ghana. He dies in August 1963 in the late evening of the day before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. And the dreams for justice continue.
Du Bois challenges vital and long-standing issues of injustice during his lifetime: disfranchisement of the African American male vote, women's suffrage, lynching, decolonization, voting rights, among many others. Some of those issues have been resolved in their earlier forms. According to Du Bois in a 1950 summary of advances over the previous 50 years, African Americans have evidenced increases in literacy and in the number of literary artists and scientists. Also, there is some securing of voting rights and the end of separate-and-supposedly-equal public accommodations. He observes, however, that African American poverty remains and that democracy must be, and will be (he argues), expanded into industrial production (P2CN 1950).
Nevertheless, the challenge of white supremacy which itself lies at the core of many of his issues still remains today, although it can take different forms. The de jure discrimination that he and others face in the years prior to the mid-20th Century has been superceded to some extent by the de facto discrimination of structural racism. Structural racism as a type of discrimination does not refer to the overt forms of bigotry, which still exist, but rather to the disproportionate effects of policies on persons of color when compared with White people in the U.S.A. Examples include the biases in the criminal justice system (often arising from different penalties for the same crime in different judicial districts), the school-to-prison pipeline (as it often called), and the use of stop-and-frisk as well as excessive force by law-enforcement officers (ex., Joseph 2017; Morris 2017).
Later scholars consider Du Bois to be an early example of engaged scholarship. We also might call him an activist scholar or a scholarly activist. In his day Du Bois confronts charges about the relationship between research and activism that still resound in a new century: for example, an engaged researcher is a biased researcher; and members of a demographic group can, or will, tend to favor that particular group (a charge that typically is applied to persons of color, not Whites).
We can study Du Bois's research/activism nexus via addressing such questions as the following:
.
How does Du Bois's own understanding of the relationship between research and activism shift over time? Based on his self-described paths (MEPF 1944), three relationships emerge.
. We could research first and then use the results for activism and policy making.
. We could concentrate more on activism because research takes too long or does not necessarily discover data that is useful.
. We could focus on research with explicitly activist goals in mind.
.
For what does Du Bois use the data? And where does he use the data?
i. Du Bois argues against White supremacism, which underpins political policies, everyday practices, and social norms: for example, the Atlanta University publications (AUPs), and "Races", a 1911 Crisis editorial (RTCE).
ii. Du Bois is a public intellectual who presents his research findings, interpretations, and policy suggestions via the popular press, the academic press, and testimonies in governmental hearings, as well as via presentations at private sector groups and organizations.
.
How does Du Bois signal the importance both of objective, evidence-based historical and social-scientific research findings as well as of the subjective role of values and ideals in activism and politics (ex., equality, justice, duty)?
. He utilizes the capacity of social research methods to seek patterns in behaviors.
. He also understands the methodological and epistemological limitations of social research.
. We can measure only what we can operationalize as hypotheses to empirically study, but we cannot find the empirically grounded normative principle that justifies duty, justice, freedom, or equality—values that Du Bois and others espouse in their struggles against oppression.
. Furthermore, what we can operationalize may not encompass the full picture of humanity. For example, we can know-about another's experiences (via observations, interviews, surveys, etc.), but we cannot know another's experiences directly.
.
What other methods, especially philosophical methods, does Du Bois utilize at different points?
. He uses phenomenology, such as is expressed in the text, "The Individual and Social Conscience". (Read about the phenomenology of the IASC in the note attached to the primary source below: {}).
. He applies evolutionary theory as an interpretive framework (which I detail in {}).
. He employs Jamesian pragmatism (which {} covers).
. He wields Marxism as an interpretive framework (which Section VII addresses).
.
The limitations of research, including the problems with the data, point to an under-examined facet of Du Bois: namely, his ideas of uncertainty and unknowability, and their associated implications for activism. (I present those topics in {} below).
Du Bois's own life incarnates all those questions at different points in time. He himself explicitly states three paths, or programs as he calls them, incorporating his developing nexus of research and activism in his essay, "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" (MEPF 1944). The three programs are linear, following one upon the other. But the three programs also overlap in time and technique.
1st:
Du Bois conducts large-scale research projects: first conduct research, then use the results to inform policy.
2nd:
Du Bois shifts emphasis in 1910 to take on the editorship of The Crisis periodical as part of the creation of the NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He stresses activism, which he terms "positive propaganda," and places much less emphasis on large-scale research projects.
3rd:
After leaving (or rather, being asked to leave) The Crisis in the mid-1930s Du Bois resumes various large scale research projects, especially historically oriented ones, and he engages in political activism.
While delving into those three path, along the way we also will cover what the research/activism nexus says about the philosophical dimensions of research, as well as highlight what the nexus tells us that is relevant today.
[Note —"My Evolving Program": Du Bois's Three Paths]
Du Bois's "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" is an important primary source for information on his views of the relationship between research and activism in an American context. He publishes it as a chapter in a 1944 collection of essays edited by Rayford Logan. At the end of the essay Du Bois provides this summary.
To achieve this freedom, I have essayed these main paths:
1. 1885-1910
"The Truth shall make ye free."
This plan was directed toward the majority of white Americans, and rested on the assumption that once they realized the scientifically attested truth concerning Negroes and race relations, they would take action to correct all wrong.
2. 1900-1930
United action on the part of thinking Americans, white and black, to force the truth concerning Negroes to the attention of the nation.
This plan assumed that the majority of Americans would rush to the defence of democracy, if they realized how race prejudice was threatening it, not only for Negroes but for whites; not only in America but in the world.
3. 1928–to the present
Scientific investigation and organized action among Negroes, in close, co-operation, to secure the survival of the Negro race, until the cultural development of America and the world is willing to recognize Negro freedom.
This plan realizes that the majority of men do not usually act in accord with reason, but follow social pressures, inherited customs and long-established, often sub-conscious, patterns of action. Consequently, race prejudice in America will linger long and may even increase. It is the duty of the black race to maintain its cultural advance, not for itself alone, but for the emancipation of mankind, the realization of democracy and the progress of civilization. [MEPF 1944: ¶¶ 122-127; Bold-face was added; the original essay's footnote and italics were removed.]
In these passages here we can observe that the younger Du Bois seeks knowledge via research that can be used for racially progressive policies. As the years passed, the difficulties of overcoming racism are too deep-seated to be resolved by conveying the facts to the Whites holding political and economic power. His argues in the third path that Africana peoples should be the preservers of democracy and civilization.
[End of Note .]
Du Bois's First Program of Research/Activism
The reception of Du Bois's social research, which encompasses both social science and historical works, concentrates heavily on his pre-1910 years, the time period when he intensively involves himself in projects in Philadelphia and Farmville, VA, as well as numerous research studies culminating in the Atlanta University studies. (An obvious exception to my statement is his 1935 book, Black Reconstruction, which I will discuss in a later section.)
During this first path, or program, he challenges the supposed knowledge about Africana peoples in general and African Americans in particular. He spells out the programmatic aspects of his research in "The Study of the Negro Problems":
"The study of the Negro as a social group may be, for convenience, divided into four not exactly logical but seemingly most practicable divisions, viz:
Du Bois's studies include many if not all of those four "practicable divisions". Indeed, he often combines them in the two basic research designs that he uses: a longitudinal design and the case study. Through those research designs, Du Bois seeks to gather the data by which to derive, via induction, generalizations about African Americans, and potentially also explanations of their actions. (View Du Bois's Preface to The Philadelphia Negro in a note within this section).
The Atlanta University Publications (AUPs) typify the longitudinal approach. Du Bois edits most of the AUPs, which are the products of the conferences held at Atlanta University. The studies are longitudinal in intent, the topics of the earlier studies would be repeated in later ones, all so as to examine the development of African Americans over time. However, this intent does not materialize fully. Du Bois argues, however, that the AUPs do provide evidence documenting indicators of progress over time, even while also documenting that some social issues in Black communities warrant further attention (TAUC 1903; ATLC 1904; LSAU 1903).{Future-Links} (Read the essay "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University" {} below).
Du Bois employs the case-study design in numerous projects that focus on particular localities. Here, we recognize his project The Philadelphia Negro, as well as his Department of Labor studies, including "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: A Social Study" (NFVA 1898) and "The Negro Landholder of Georgia" (NLGA 1901). He publishes "The Black North" as a five-part series in the New York Times that examines New York, Boston, and Philadelphia published (BNS1, BNS2, BNS3, BNS4, BNS5 1901). He compares African Americans in Philadelphia and Atlanta in "The Negro South and North" (TNSN 1905).
[Note —Du Bois's Preface to The Philadelphia Negro]
Du Bois's Preface to The Philadelphia Negro (TPN 1899) offers us insights into his case-study methods, especially Paragraph 7 below.
PREFACE.
————
[Par. 1] In November, 1897, I submitted to the American Academy of Political and Social Science a plan for the study of the Negro problems.1[Footnote 1: "Published in the Annals of the Academy for January, 1898."] This work is an essay along the lines there laid down, and is thus part of a larger design of observation and research into the history and social condition of the transplanted Africans.
[Par. 2] The opportunity of making this particular study was due to the initiative of Miss Susan P. Wharton, a Philadelphia woman active in practical social reform, and to the interest and generosity of Dr. Charles Custis Harrison, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, and other citizens of Philadelphia.
[Par. 3] The Department of Finance and Economy (Wharton School) of the University of Pennsylvania had the general oversight of the work, and I am under many obligations to the professors in that department for assistance and counsel. Especially am I indebted to Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, Assistant Professor of Sociology, for aid, advice and sympathy, without which the work could hardly have been brought to a successful close.
[Par. 4] I must also express the general sense of obligation which I feel toward the Negroes of Philadelphia, and especially toward those of the Seventh Ward, for their broad-minded attitude toward an inquiry which was at best a prying into private affairs. With no authority of law behind me, the whole success of the undertaking depended on voluntary co-operation. I am glad that, almost without exception, there was a disposition to allow the full truth to be known for the sake of science and social reform.
[Par. 5] Many persons have rendered me assistance in various ways during the investigation. Among these I must especially mention the Rev. Henry L. Phillips, Rector of the Church of the Crucifixion; Mr. George W. Mitchell, of the Philadelphia bar; Mr. W. Carl Bolivar, Mr. R. F. Adger, and Miss Isabel Eaton, Fellow of the College Settlements Association. Mr. W. M. Dorsey kindly placed his unique scrap-books at my disposal.
[Par. 6] As large numbers of the Philadelphia Negroes immigrate from Virginia, I spent the summer of 1897 in that State for my own enlightenment. The results of my observations were published in the Bulletin of the United Stales Department of Labor, for January, 1898, in a contribution entitled "The Negroes of Farmville: a Social Study." This must be regarded as a part of the present work.
[Par. 7] It is my earnest desire to pursue this particular form of study far enough to constitute a fair basis of induction as to the present condition of the American Negro. If, for instance, Boston in the East, Chicago and perhaps Kansas City in the West, and Atlanta, New Orleans and Galveston in the South, were studied in a similar way, we should have a trustworthy picture of Negro city life. Add to this an inquiry into similarly selected country districts, and certainly our knowledge of the Negro would be greatly increased. The department of history and economics of Atlanta University, where I am now situated, is pursuing certain lines of inquiry in this general direction. I hope that funds may be put at our disposal for this larger and more complete scheme.
[Par. 8] Finally, let me add that I trust that this study with all its errors and shortcomings will at least serve to emphasize the fact that the Negro problems are problems of human beings; that they cannot be explained away by fantastic theories, ungrounded assumptions or metaphysical subtleties. They present a field which the student must enter seriously, and cultivate carefully and honestly. And until he has prepared the ground by intelligent and discriminating research, the labors of philanthropist and statesman must continue to be, to a large extent, barren and unfruitful.
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois.
Atlanta University,
June 1st, 1899.
[End of the Preface: TPN 1899: pp.iii-v]
Editorial Notes: This preface by Du Bois is not included in either the 1967 reprinting of The Philadelphia Negro edited by E. Digby Baltzell or the 1996 reprinting edited by Elijah Anderson. Also note that the original 1899 publication contains a textual transposition error. The last line of page iii prints "that they cannot be explained away by fantastic theories," which seems meant to follow the semicolon on the last line of page iv. This new arrangement (as conveyed in the quotation above) is the accurately rendered first sentence of Paragraph 8. The library at Harvard University contains a page facsimile of the book, including the Preface. In the page facsimiles accessible online, someone has handwritten the correction to the transposed sentence fragments (visit https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:2574418$9i).
[End of Note .]
Longitudinal data over time and/or case studies of specific locales at specific times provide the information from which to derive generalizations. In addition, generalizations require that the data is representative: that is, the data of a group of people accurately convey what average (or typical) members of that group think, or do, or believe. If the data are indeed representative, then generalizations are possible insofar as patterns are present that address the research questions being examined. (For examples of such research questions, view "The Twelfth Census and the Negro Problems" (1900){}: ¶ 2 below.) Also, Du Bois is aware of the limitations of the representativeness of data. For example, he often acknowledges that the response rate for information requested is less than optimal, with the consequent result that generalizations about a group are not possible or else are less accurate than would be desired (ex., Atlanta University studies, multiple years).
Du Bois can argue and substantiate his and others' claims about African American progress. For example, in "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia" he discusses the progress of middle-class African Americans, while also recognizing that other classes are lagging behind (NFVA 1898; see also his "The Future of the Negro Race in America" FNRA 1904). Such generalizations are useful to combat the stereotypes found in everyday life and law. For example, Whites often think that African Americans are homogenous as a group. Du Bois demonstrates that social and economic progress is being made because he focuses on class differentials within African American communities. In addition, "The Development of a People" summarizes the lessons of how races and peoples can progress over time (TDOP 1904). {Future-Link} Historical generalizations allow Du Bois to frame the questions to investigate, as I elaborate upon in the note below.
[Note —Historical Generalizations]
Via the interpretation of historical dynamics Du Bois frames research questions for empirically oriented, explanatory studies. As a case in point, consider his 1904 essay, "The Development of a People." Du Bois holds that under the slavery regime and its aftermath African Americans have had to adjust to new sets of circumstances, circumstances that have not provided sufficient or fair opportunities for Blacks to develop their full human and individual potential (TDOP 1904). Accordingly, he argues that one does not correctly interpret social data by posing ahistorical questions or by making historically inappropriate comparisons; that is, one does not simply look, for example, at the data of Black property ownership since Emancipation and then compare it with Whites. Rather, one should ask historically specific questions, especially given the social impediments to education and related, often deleterious, influences on Black economic advancement. Du Bois asks, for example:
"How soon after a social revolution like emancipation ought one reasonably to expect the appearance of habits of thrift and the accumulation of property? Moreover, how far is the accumulating of wealth indicative of general advance in moral habits and sound character, or how far is it independent of them or in spite of them?" (TDOP 1904: p.294)
In the essay, unlike his more social-scientific inquiries, Du Bois does not provide operational indicators to answer such questions.
[End of Note .]
But generalizations are not necessarily explanations that account for why something has occurred. Social scientists tend to ask about the causal influences on an individual's or group's behavior, while historians and others in the historical areas often seek the human decisions and social causes that generated an event or sequences of events. As Du Bois writes in "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University":
[. . . .] "Our main object in this year of work is to find out what characteristics of human life can be known, classified and compared. Students are expected to know what the average death-rate of American negroes [sic] is, how it varies, and what it means when compared with the death-rates of other peoples and classes. When they learn by search in the census and their own mathematical calculations that 30 per cent of the negroes [sic] of New York City are twenty to thirty years of age, they immediately set to work to explain this anomaly, and so on." [{} 1903: ¶ 5]
Explanation is vital for Du Bois's social research: explanation involves the use of a comparative technique, which itself also includes comparing African Americans to others within other contexts. Such contexts include varying historical and geographical dimensions.
[Note —Comparative Techniques]
At the core of Du Bois's research is the role of comparison when seeking generalizations and explanations of behaviors. He offers a succinct description in a newspaper column published in Freedom (January 1953). The following is excerpted from a longer discussion of debates among African Americans about progress.
[. . . .] In the midst of such contradictions [about progress] it is not easy for anyone to make a satisfactory answer to the question as to how great progress the struggle for Negro freedom has made in the last century, and whether or not the progress should be regarded as satisfactory.
There are three sorts of comparisons that could be made and are made and which confuse the final answer. For it has been the custom of the United States Census to compare the condition of Negroes with the corresponding facts concerning the white population. This of course is a crude and unfair comparison. There is not much to be learned by comparing a group of people less than a century removed from slavery and still suffering grave social and economic discrimination, with the mass of the freer white citizens. A much more illuminating comparison could be made by studying the social and economic classes arising within the Negro group; and of course the most valuable comparison would be that of contrasting the group with itself at different times and places.
This kind of study of the American Negro has not been adequately done. It was started at Atlanta University in l896 and for 13 years a body of fact which made a study of the inner development of the American Negro possible was carried on by Negro scholars. It was partially pursued further at Fisk Univ.[sic] and at Howard Univ.,[sic] but there was no wide concentration of effort on the American Negro group and Negroes gradually lost leadership and direction in this field.
To supply this lack I tried in 1940 to rehabilitate the Atlanta University studies on a broader scale, and to unite some 50 colored institutions in the southern states in a concentrated series of social studies which might have proven the most interesting sociological experiment in the modem world. This project was allowed to lapse when I was retired.
In addition to the comparison between the American Negro group and the white group, and the more significant comparison of the Negro group with itself at different times and places, there is also an increasingly more significant comparison of the American Negro group with other groups in the world; as for instance, with various parts of Africa, with the nations of Asia and the peoples of the South Sea islands, the West Indies, South and Central America. Such comparisons are important because they point out the relation between the Negro group and these other groups and the relative influence of different environments and social developments. [OHYS 1953: pp.1112-1113; the spelling of "Univ." is found in the original; a subheading "THREE COMPARISIONS" was removed.]
As part of empirical methodology, holding social contexts (i.e., structures) constant will allow us to better understand how different groups act and socially develop under similar circumstances, or perhaps whether different contexts (structures) lead to similar results among the members of the same group/race. Moreover, comparing groups and members of the same group at different points in time allows us to glimpse the progress, regress, or stasis of the variables being studied (ex., income, education, jobs). Observe here that Du Bois is assuming the a fundamentally equal humanity, which White supremacists would not, when comparing between races and between countries.
Among the types of comparisons Du Bois utilizes in his research we can delineate the following, along with a typical example:
.
rural and urban variations among African Americans (Du Bois's review of Hoffman's Race Traits, RTTR 1897: ¶ 12);
.
inter-regional variations between North and South among African Americans ("The Negro in the South and in the North" NISN 1900; TNSN 1905);
.
intra-regional variations among African Americans ("The Black North" series, BNS1–BNS5 1901);
.
differences in the class structure of specific African American communities (NFVA 1897);
.
African Americans studied over time across the U.S.A. (AUPs; OHYS 1953);
.
African Americans in relation to the phases necessary for the historical "development of a people" (TDOP: ¶ 10); and
.
African Americans in relation to Whites in European countries (TPN 1899).
[End of Note .]
The contexts (just mentioned) entail examining the social conditions, including social structures, which provide the opportunities and constraints encountered by Africana peoples. Du Bois situates Africana agentic individuals within racial groups within structures of societal and global power. By building on his research/activism nexus, we in the 21st Century can better explain and interpret behavior so as to advance social justice. (For more details, including why he would utilize structures in his research, read {}: Du Bois on Structure and Agency).
[Note —Research by Others on African Americans]
Du Bois's prodigious studies are preceded by a small number of projects, including the anonymous A Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the People of Colour, of the City and Districts of Philadelphia (1849), and Gannett (1894, 1895).
Du Bois is joined in the circum-1900 period by the scholarship of contemporaries, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1892, 1895), George Bradford (1896, 1897), George Haynes (1912), J. Bradford Laws (1902), Sadie Tanner Alexander Mossell (1921); Mary White Ovington (1911), William Taylor Thom (1901a, 1901b); and Richard R. Wright, Jr. (1903, 1907a, 1907b). Furthermore, other contribution arise from the participants in various conferences, such as the National Negro Conference in 1909 (Du Bois NCTN 1909); and the Universal Races Congress in 1911 (Singh 1911; Spiller 1911).
As the 20th Century progresses, the number of scholars increases: among others, we find Anna Julia Cooper (1925), E. Franklin Frazier (1939, 1957, 1968), Shirley Graham (1946, 1947), Charles S. Johnson (1930, 1968/1938), and St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton (1945).
For more recent studies examine Patrick Gilpin and Marybeth Gasman (2003), Francille Wilson (2006), and Earl Wright II (2009, 2010).
[End of Note .]
Many Americans disagreed with Du Bois's research conclusions about the overall progress of blacks after the U.S. Civil War, and not all of the critics were White (ex., W.H. Thomas 1901). The disagreement of a White collaborator, Walter F. Willcox, offers us insights into the assumptions and foundations (i.e., the meta-theory) that underpin Du Bois's arguments, including his idea of "intimate soul contact" as a basis for further research. (For the latter, access the following note).
[Note —Justifying Research and Researching Justice]
Du Bois sends a collaborator, Walter F. Willcox, his article entitled "The Future of the Negro Race in America" (FNRA 1904). In the article Du Bois sets forth data indicating signs of African American progress. He argues that the evidence "is distinctly and emphatically hopeful, and in the light of history and human development it puts the burden of proof rather on those who deny the capabilities of the negro [sic] than on those who assume that they are not essentially different from those of other members of the great human family." [FNRA 1904: ¶¶ 36-37]
In a letter to Du Bois, Willcox thanks him for sending the article, but disagrees with several points that Du Bois makes in the essay. In particular, Willcox's writes that he is "an agnostic on the subject" of whether the factors influencing African American "economic conditions" (as he phrases it) derive more from innate characteristics or from social conditions. He indicates that there is no data to support one factor as more influential than the other (Willcox 1904).
Du Bois's response to Willcox carefully distinguishes his opinions that favor a positive view of African Americans, on the one hand, from the data that would support such a claim, on the other. Nonetheless, Du Bois believes there is warrant to argue that African Americans in general can socially advance, or to use the language of the article, they can be deemed as fit as any race. Specifically, Du Bois's writes that his "intimate soul contact" with African Americans provides him with a basis—a pragmatic basis arguably—on which to act on the assumption of humanity and to conduct research to find out if socio-economic success is really happening. For Du Bois, in opposition to Willcox, there are real-world examples by which one can interpret whether economic success is occurring over time. Du Bois indicates that in his experience Blacks are becoming more socially successful within a social context of repression and segregation. Du Bois will continue to research the status of African Americans over time.
For a more elaborate discussion, refer to {}: Du Bois and Jamesian Pragmatism.
[End of Note .]
Although Du Bois provides neither the first nor the only, studies of African Americans, many recognize his efforts studying the vital social issues of his day. Such issues researched during his first program include the convict lease system and the politics of respectability (as it has come to be called) via a display at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Significantly, the renowned Atlanta University publications cover various issues pertinent to African Americans: for example, health housing, education (including college education), businesses, religion, and Black churches as important community organizations.
Du Bois expresses his activism during the pre-1910 period in several ways: {Future-Links}
• Testifying at a Congressional Industrial Commission hearing
• Writing newspaper editorials
• Public speaking: ex., 1906 speech at the Constitution League (voting)
• Presenting a study on African Americans at the 1900 Paris Exposition
• Co-organizing the Niagara Movement: voting rights
• Promoting Pan-Africanism
In the years spanning the end of one century and the rise of a new one, Du Bois considers that racial justice must encompass both research and activism, although in a combination that differs from his later view. Via research, scholars gather the data and provide the analysis, seeking patterns that speak to causation and influence on human actions. Activists can use such data and analyses to support, for example, the equal extension of rights or the equitable enforcement of current rights. Du Bois clearly hopes that the information gathered on the occupations of African Americans, including those with a college education, can influence White Americans and politicians: there is no danger of militancy for those with bachelor's degrees or other forms of higher education. Other cases might be offered here. Du Bois speaks before the Congressional Industrial Commission, describing in his testimony the fieldwork he has conducted in Georgia and presenting data on African Americans in that state to the members of Congress at the hearing (UICT 1901).
The younger Du Bois distinguishes the end goal for researchers from the end goal of activists and reformers. Scholars via their rigorous inquiries seek objective knowledge as their end result; activists via their committed protests seek to promote a just society oriented by normative values and ideals. He conveys this distinction in "The Study of the Negro Problems":
"[T]he aim of science itself is simple truth. Any attempt to give it a double aim, to make social reform the immediate instead of the mediate object of a search for truth, will inevitably tend to defeat both objects. [....] Only by such rigid adherence to the true object of the scholar, can statesmen and philanthropists of all shades of belief be put into possession of a reliable body of truth which may guide their efforts to the best and largest success." [SNP 1898: ¶ 35]
Accordingly, Du Bois holds that conflating the respective goals of scientific research and activism is dangerous for both scientists and reformers. In what we are still often taught as the conventional rationale for objective scholarship, bias might result—bias in favor of one outcome before the facts are gathered or bias during the data analysis. Due to the ever-present possibility of bias, researchers should gather their data without necessarily desiring any specific outcome to occur. In the company of his contemporaries, the younger Du Bois contends that data must first be collected and analyzed before being applied to resolving social problems (e.g., Peabody 1909: 41-43; Ward 1898: 282; C. Wright 1899: 8). The ivory tower of scholarship must prevail.
[Note —What to Do with the Information Gathered?]
In May 1960 William Ingersoll interviews Du Bois, who provides many fascinating details about his life, especially his education in the U.S.A. and Germany. As regards the relationship of research and activism during his first program, he recalls an episode during his study in Philadelphia that speaks directly to the convention that researchers should not have a reform goal as the primary purpose of conducting the inquiry. Ingersoll questions Du Bois:
Q: How did you find the attitude of the people you interviewed? Cooperative? helpful? [sic]
DuBois: A good many of the better educated and well-to-do didn't like it at all. They didn't like to be investigated; they weren't wild animals or anything of that sort. And they didn't like to have a stranger come and investigate them. I remember one case in particular. There was a young man who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in engineering, a young colored man belonging to a well-to-do and well known colored family. I went to his sister, and the story was, that I had heard—I think it was true—that he couldn't get a job and he had to work as a waiter in a place where many of his fellow-graduates were dining. I asked her about these facts, and she looked me over rather coldly and said, "Why do you want to know?"
I said, "Well, I'd just like to get at the truth of the matter."
"What are you going to do about it after you know?"
"I'm not going to do anything about it."
"Well, in that case, I'm not interested," and she wouldn't give me any information. Well, I could see her point of view. If this was an effort on the part of the people who had not given him a chance to open some chances for him, that was one thing; but if they were just "coming to look us over like a herd of cattle" —
There were others, however, who saw what I was trying to do. There was one case, for instance, when I was asked to a minister's meeting, some place on Monday where colored ministers of all denominations were meeting to talk about various subjects, and I was to speak. I went down there, and went on the dias,[original] and they looked at me rather uneasily—here weren't any of them who knew anything about me, there wasn't anything they could say. So I got up and introduced myself, and told them what I was trying to do, and explained to them in detail. Most of them were very cooperative after that. [OHWI 1960: pp.172-174]
Du Bois's response that he would not do anything with the information perhaps is referring to the situation in which he was not going to help one particular individual. Perhaps is focusing on the Seventh Ward in the city at the aggregate level, which we might expect from the fact that his efforts lead to the publication of The Philadelphia Negro.
Du Bois ultimately does not complete the interview, which Ingersoll has intended to cover more of his life.
[End of Note .]
During the first program Du Bois believes research and its distribution would, or at least could, produce positive results. Perhaps it could convince White Americans and politicians to push for racial reforms and equality (MEPF 1944: ¶¶ 122-123). Research first, then conduct activism afterwards. As he writes in his posthumously published autobiography about his years coordinating the Atlanta University studies, he "put no special emphasis on reform effort, but increasing . . . the collection of a basic body of facts" (A68 1968: 214). As the early 20th Century continues, however, he comes to criticize the gathering of a "body of facts" and even to question its potential for persuasion.
Social Research and Social Death
Du Bois is recognized by many in the US and around the world as one of the leaders in the struggle for civil rights, a "race man" as some call him. But despite the abiding, courageous efforts of those struggling in the long, very long civil rights movement, the racial injustices persist. And despite his own efforts and sacrifices among the efforts and sacrifices of innumerable others, his scholarly studies seem less effective than he has hoped.
Indeed, the power structures dominating his time and space via segregation, colonialism and White supremacism seem unmoved to any great extent by his scholarship or that of others. Later in life, Du Bois summarizes his changing understanding of the relationship between research and activism in the first decade of a new century. The summary is more succinct than the actual time it probably takes to happen in his day-to-day life over the course of weeks and months and years. His second program for Black freedom incarnates this understanding:
"I realized that evidently the social scientist could not sit apart and study in vacuo; neither on the other hand, could he work fast and furiously simply by intuition and emotion, without seeking in the midst of action, the ordered knowledge which research and tireless observation might give him. I tried therefore in my new work, not to pause, when remedy was needed; on the other hand I sought to make each incident and item in my program of social uplift, part of a wider and vaster structure of real scientific knowledge of the race problem in America." [MEPF 1944: ¶ 73]
His "Evolving Program" essay offers even more specific criticisms of social research.
As Du Bois indicates retrospectively in "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom", a practical critique of empirical research can be made (MEPF 1944: ¶¶ 71-75). Indeed, he lists several problems of research as a potential source of information for activism.
a.
Social research can take too long to accomplish, and thus, cannot fully, if at all, guide actions in a time of "social death", a term he uses to convey the lynching, segregation, and political repression endured by persons of color
b.
Social research cannot necessarily uncover sufficient and comprehensive data and evidence, whether the studies are attempted in the grip of social crises, such as the East St. Louis race riots of 1917, or in the often less hectic study of historical events where evidence nonetheless may be unrecoverable.
c.
Indeed, the data/evidence may not be available, as he indicates in "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" and other works:
. The evidence can be incomplete.
. The evidence may not be available—yet.
. The evidence may not be recoverable by any extant or future methods.
. The evidence available may not be able to confirm or disconfirm the existence of some thing (e.g., a higher power or deity), or a political value (TCAR 1933).
. (The last two items speak to Du Bois's theme of unknowability: read {}: Du Bois on Nescience: Uncertainty and Unknowability.)
d.
Social research may not be able to discover the "social laws" of human action, which would involve knowing about the deterministic causes that generate predictable human behaviors.
e.
Social researchers themselves are embedded, even embodied (my term), within society, and thus cannot study society and humans "in vacuo".
For a more detailed rendition, read the extended quotation from "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" (MEPF).
[Note —Du Bois's Criticisms of Research: MEPF Quoted]
In his "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" Du Bois sets forth his trenchant criticisms of social research, especially social-scientific inquiries.
[par.71] On the other hand, gradually and with increasing clarity, my whole attitude toward the social sciences began to change: in the study of human beings and their actions, there could be no such rift between theory and practice, between pure and applied science, as was possible in the study of sticks and stones. The "studies" which I had been conducting at Atlanta I saw as fatally handicapped because they represented so small a part of the total sum of occurrences; were so far removed in time and space as to lose the hot reality of real life; and because the continuous, kaleidoscopic change of conditions made their story old already before it was analyzed and told.
[par.72] If, of course, they had had time to grow in breadth and accuracy, this difficulty would have been met, or at least approached. Now in contrast I suddenly saw life, full and face to face; I began to know the problem of Negroes in the United States as a present startling reality; and moreover (and this was most upsetting) I faced situations that called—shrieked—for action, even before any detailed, scientific study could possibly be prepared. It was as though, as a bridge-builder, I was compelled to throw a bridge across a stream without waiting for the careful mathematical testing of materials. Such testing was indispensable, but it had to be done so often in the midst of building or even after construction, and not in the calm and leisure long before. I saw before me a problem that could not and would not await the last word of science, but demanded immediate action to prevent social death. I was continually the surgeon probing blindly, yet with what knowledge and skill I could muster, for unknown ill, bound to be fatal if I hesitated, but possibly effective, if I persisted.
[par.73] I realized that evidently the social scientist could not sit apart and study in vacuo; neither on the other hand, could he work fast and furiously simply by intuition and emotion, without seeking in the midst of action, the ordered knowledge which research and tireless observation might give him. I tried therefore in my new work, not to pause, when remedy was needed; on the other hand I sought to make each incident and item in my program of social uplift, part of a wider and vaster structure of real scientific knowledge of the race problem in America.
[par.74] Facts, in social science, I realized, were elusive things: emotions, loves, hates, were facts; and they were facts in the souls and minds of the scientific student, as well as in the persons studied. Their measurement, then, was doubly difficult and intricate. If I could see and feel this in East St. Louis, where I investigated a bloody race riot, I knew all the more definitely, that in the cold, bare facts of history, so much was omitted from the complete picture that it could only be recovered as complete scientific knowledge if we could read back into the past enough to piece out the reality. I knew also that even in the ugly picture which I actually saw, there was so much of decisive truth missing that any story I told would be woefully incomplete.
[par.75] Then, too, for what Law was I searching? In accord with what unchangeable scientific law of action was the world of interracial discord about me working? I fell back upon my Royce and James and deserted Schmoller and Weber. I saw the action of physical law in the actions of men; but I saw more than that: I saw rhythms and tendencies; coincidences and probabilities; and I saw that, which for want of any other word, I must in accord with the strict tenets of Science, call Chance. I went forward to build a sociology, which I conceived of as the attempt to measure the element of Chance in human conduct. This was the Jamesian pragmatism, applied not simply to ethics, but to all human action, beyond what seemed to me, increasingly, the distinct limits of physical law. [MEPF 1944: ¶¶ 71-75]
Below, I will return to Du Bois on Jamesian pragmatism, an important dimension to his understanding of research/activism.
[End of Note .]
It is interesting to contemplate the significance of Du Bois's critique. Although conventional techniques are important, in "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" Du Bois indicates that they are inadequate to more fully understand the experiences of African-Americans (MEPF 1944: ¶ 75). Of course, Du Bois indicates dissatisfaction with conventional methods in other places. Other scholars have noted this. Ronald Judy writing with reference to the importance of the posthumously published DuBoisian text, "Sociology Hesitant," argues that the manuscript represents Du Bois's reaction to the limitations of empirical methods to conceptualize how humans make and embrace meaning in the world. Judy indicates that Du Bois "began to question the validity of any procedure of rational justification that claimed to derive its legitimacy from determinate knowledge." (Judy 1994: 265; also see Judy 2000: 32). Similarly, but with reference to the 19th Century German academic debates over Geisteswissenschaft and Naturwissenschaft, Barrington Edwards (2006) writes that Du Bois never resolves the tension between the former's focus on interpreting the uniqueness of individual actions and events, and the latter's emphasis on explaining human action in terms of law-like regularities. For further elaborations of this see Outlaw (2000) and Chandler (2015).
A fuller picture of humans would include listening to the experiences of the individuals, especially the marginalized ones. The "Souls" essay indicates this: Americans, especially White Americans, can come to know something about such experiences, if they would listen (SBFI 1904). In addition, we must understand the ideals that motivate them to act and the values by which they justify their actions—an understanding that is only incompletely gathered via surveys and participant observations. Moreover, conventional methods are not intended to inspire or persuade humans to particular courses of action. Perhaps the data gathered and the conclusions drawn therefrom might be part of a rhetorical strategy of logos; present the facts in an attempt to appeal to reason and evidence. Du Bois obviously does this as a public intellectual. But, in addition, values and ideals are needed to inspire actions and to persuade, for example Whites, to curtail discriminatory policies and norms. Again, Du Bois obviously does this in his rights-based arguments: civil rights are being denied African Americans, thereby making a sham of any pretense of democracy in America.
As a consequence of his practical critique of traditional research techniques, Du Bois indicates that a supplemental methodology is needed. It is one that is more phenomenological: the distance between the researcher and the researched (conventionally intended to avoid bias via conflicts of interest) is sundered. Accordingly, a phenomenological method questions the dichotomy in the subject and object relationship (the knower/known relationship), all with the goal of promoting understanding between persons, including researcher and researched and of justifying and inspiring duty for social justice. The methodological distance so standard in conventional research will not promote duty or inspire actions for the good. Hence, Du Bois seeks a methodological way to bridge the distance in order to find commonalities among humans.
Du Bois does this, I argue, in "The Individual and Social Conscience" (IASC 1905). Finding the commonalities among the differences among humans will hopefully both unite humanity in terms of essential similarities and also inspire us to pursue our duty towards social justice. Du Bois concludes in that short work:
To induce, then, in men a consciousness of the humanity of all men, of the sacred unity in all the diversity, is not merely to lay down a pious postulate, but it is the active and animate heart-to-heart knowledge of your neighbors, high and low, black and white, employer and employed; it means a firm planting of human ideals; the training of children to be through their doing, and not simply to do through their being; the setting of our faces like flint against the modern heresy that money makes the man. . . . [IASC 1905: ¶ 7]
"The Individual and Social Conscience" arguably offers an uplifting message. The IASC provides a religious grounding for his message rather than his later, more Marxist framework, which stresses the material relations, rather than a theological foundation, to human life and organization. Nonetheless, in the early 1900s the text signals Du Bois's dissent from an unquestioning use of conventional tools. (Read the complete essay below: {}). In addition, the IASC calls on us to examine Du Bois's thematic of nescience —the uncertainty of some forms of knowledge as well as that which cannot be known in principle. Read {}: Du Bois on Nescience: Uncertainty and Unknowability.
The above criticisms about empirical methodologies prompt and undergird Du Bois's move towards a more organizational style of activism: namely, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, which he co-founded in 1909. Du Bois indicates that he will try to persuade people by telling them what it feels like to be marginalized. He will suggest courses of action (RAMA 1961: side one, band 4). As he says about the transition to his second program: "and so I changed from studying the Negro problem to propaganda—to letting people know just what the Negro problem meant in what the colored people were suffering and what they were kept from doing." (RAMA 1961: side 1, band 5).
Du Bois's Second Program of Research/Activism: The Crisis
Du Bois becomes editor of The Crisis, the official periodical of the NAACP. He writes about his views on research during his editorship in "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" (1944):
"This new field of endeavor represented a distinct break from my previous purely scientific program. While "research" was still among my duties, there were in fact no funds for such work. My chief efforts were devoted to editing and publishing the Crisis, which I founded on my own responsibility, and over the protests of many of my associates. With the Crisis, I essayed a new role of interpreting to the world the hindrances and aspirations of American Negroes. My older program appeared only as I supported my contentions with facts from current reports and observation or historic reference; my writing was reinforced by lecturing, and my facts increased by travel." [MEPF 1944: ¶70]
Du Bois however does continue some types of research while editor of The Crisis, although it is research utilizing sources of available information and not necessarily field research. There is one notable exception: Du Bois does travel to France in the aftermath of the First World War to study African Americans soldiers in terms of their roles and their treatment during the war efforts. This is his "Wounded World" project, which he never completes (read Chad Williams 2018).
[Note —Du Bois's Research Published in The Crisis]
Examples of Du Bois's research-related essays in The Crisis typically entail analyzing the data gathered by others. The following list provides the publication date and title [or topic enclosed in square brackets]:
• June 1917: "The Migration of Negroes"
• September 1917: [Massacre of East St. Louis].
• March 1919: "The Black Man in the Revolution of 1914-1918".
• April 1919: "The Fields of Battle".
• June 1919: "An Essay toward the History of the Black Man in the Great War".
• February 1921: "The Election and Democracy".
• June 1921: "Colored Teachers in Charleston Schools".
• March/April 1923: "The Negro and the Northern Public Schools".
• November 1924: "Education" [map of South Carolina].
• November 1924: [unsigned] "The Political Power of the South" [Disfranchisement].
• September/October 1928: "The Possibility of Democracy in America".
• December 1928: "The Campaign of 1928".
• February 1929: "A Pilgrimage to the Negro Schools".
• March 1931: "Woofterism" [Book review].
• June 1933: [unsigned] "A History of the Negro Vote".
• June 1933: "The Strategy of the Negro Vote".
[End of Note .]
Numerous social and political issues during the time period of the second program:
• Disfranchisement
• Lynching
• The "damnation" of women
• Voting rights for women
• Pan-Africanism continues
• World War I
What is Du Bois prompting people to do for social justice activism? Du Bois's activism during the second program period focuses on a number of the vital issues confronting America and the world during the first two decades of the 20th Century. He continues to promote democratic inclusion, which he previously has sought via securing civil and political rights as well as voting (ex., "The Negro American and the Ballot" NATB 1906 and "Address to the Country" ATTC 1905 {Future-Links}. Vital to democracy are women's rights, especially suffrage, and advocacy of the women's right to vote occupies many pieces in The Crisis {Future-Link}. However, to his push for democracy during his second program Du Bois adds the very important idea of "excluded wisdom" (in "Of the Ruling of Men" OROM 1920). The democracy espoused by Du Bois also includes democratic participation in industrial decisions, such as what to manufacture. Scientific research and citizen input are needed for a true democracy. He continues this theme over the years.
[Note —Challenging the Film "Birth of a Nation"]
The NAACP challenges the D.W. Griffith film, "Birth of a Nation" during the time of Du Bois's second program of research/activism. The organization promotes a boycott of the showing of the film due to its racist depictions of African Americans. The pages of The Crisis carry many criticisms in 1915. The boycott bings some attention to the film and its impact in the early 20th Century, but its racist themes and imagery still persist on across the years.
[End of Note .]
During the second program period of research/activism Du Bois increasingly argues for democratic participation, based not solely on natural rights as a justification (which he has emphasized earlier), but based also on what citizens know that is also marginalized as a source of information: namely, their "excluded wisdom". His argument on "excluded wisdom" highlights a recurring theme: the limitations of social research and the unknowability of some things that derives from those limitations ultimately means that nescience, as much as science, speaks to activism. Indeed, our inability to know others' experiences and knowledge directly prompts Du Bois, and he prompts us, to forms of activism not based on knowledge-about. (I discuss Du Bois's idea of "excluded wisdom" more fully below in a portion of {}, which covers uncertainty and unknowability).
Du Bois in "Of the Ruling of Men" argues for specific policies: public control over various industries, such as "public utilities and monopolies", but such public control would not be limited only to these (OROM 1920: ¶ 61). A "public democratic ownership of industry" (OROM 1920: ¶ 61) would promote not only public welfare, but also art and education (OROM 1920: ¶ 60). He believes that the public would and could be trained in "business techniques" and could work via co-operatives and unions (OROM 1920: ¶ 62).
Du Bois's ideas on unknowability have consequences for activism. Just as there is a relationship between science and activism, so there is a relationship between nescience and activism. Our lack of knowledge-about prompts Du Bois to engage in activism in the form of an aesthetic imagination. Du Bois is very clear about this in an essay in a 1926 issue of The Crisis, "Criteria of Negro Art". In "Criteria" he distinguishes between art and science, highlighting the different groundings of each.
"Thus it is the bounden duty of black America to begin this great work of the creation of Beauty, of the preservation of Beauty, of the realization of Beauty, and we must use in this work all the methods that men have used before. And what have been the tools of the artist in times gone by? First of all, he has used the Truth—not for the sake of truth, not as a scientist seeking truth, but as one upon whom Truth eternally thrusts itself as the highest handmaid of imagination, as the one great vehicle of universal understanding. Again artists have used Goodness—goodness in all its aspects of justice, honor and right—not for sake of an ethical sanction but as the one true method of gaining sympathy and human interest." [CNA 1926: ¶ 27; capitalization in the original]
Thus, art is activism, too. For Du Bois, art as activism can counter the negative stereotypes about Africana persons and communities by creating "positive propaganda" which portrays African Americans as humans who are "lovable and inspired with new ideals for the world" (CNA 1926: ¶ 32).
[Note —The Harlem Renaissance and Black Experiences]
The Harlem Renaissance provides us with a plethora of examples of African American artistic forms, some of which Du Bois himself does not appreciate—just as many of the Harlem Renaissancers themselves considered him too stodgy
For example, Zora Neale Hurston argues in the essay "Art and Such" that Race Men and Race Women, such as Du Bois himself and the fictional characters he creates, promote one rather limited range of experiences (Hurston 1938). She holds that African Americans are also individuals who embody a broad range of ideas, goals, and life situations. Accordingly, artists of all aesthetic forms must express this individual diversity, regardless of—or in spite of—the political goals of the race. In her essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" she conveys her personal experiences of blackness and individuality, and her exaltations, aggravations, and reflections on being a Black woman in the U.S.A. (Hurston 1928).
[End of Note .]
Activism and research also can mutually reinforce one another. For Du Bois, the need to understand changing social conditions and their effects on Black lives, such as the great migration north and west and issues of disfranchisement, necessitate the concomitant need to analyze the evidence. Where can this evidence come from? Du Bois across his life gathers and analyzes the data himself. But the data can also originate in the people and groups themselves. The citizen activism that informs research seems to be like what in later decades we call participatory action research (PAR). In PAR studies, community members are co-researchers (Baum et al. 2006; Institute of Development Studies N.D.). A vital aspect of PAR is that the needs of the community drive the formulation and study of research questions. In the cases where the focus lies on injustice, then we call this critical participatory action research (CPAR).
What Du Bois is doing as editor of The Crisis does not necessarily comport with CPAR, especially in that Du Bois tends to initiate the topics discussed. Nevertheless, an important facet of his research is analogous with CPAR: namely, that CPAR is seeking to remove the trained scholars from the ivory towers and to situate them in the places and times of groups and communities struggling against a more powerful political and/or economic opponent. As I interpret Du Bois, this is the embodiment, as I call it, that lies at the heart of research /activism, especially in terms of the implicit philosophy of social science that underpins the nexus.
During his second program Du Bois continues to stress the democratic aspects of Africana and African American equality and freedom. Yet are his efforts and the efforts of countless other civil rights advocates to any avail?
Du Bois's Increasingly (Heterodox) Leftist Framework
During his second program Du Bois continues to stress the democratic aspects of Africana and African American equality and freedom. Yet are his efforts and the efforts of countless other civil rights advocates and fighters for freedom and equality to any avail? Du Bois would answer "to little avail." In addition, Du Bois's study of the transnational facets of injustice intensifies, and most significantly, acquires a focus on the dynamics of capitalism. His earlier discussion of the color line as encompassing the world, through the racism of imperialism and colonialism, expands theoretically in conjunction with his growing emphasis on socialism and Marxism (MEPF: ¶¶ 83-86; read also Mullen 2016.)
For Du Bois, ameliorating the effects of racism, as difficult as that may be, would not minimize or eradicate the oppression of persons of color in the U.S.A. or in the world. Capitalist exploitation by business owners, industries, and profit-oriented policies would still remain, regardless of which race controls economic production (OHWI 1960: pp.188-190; but observe a 1933 Crisis essay by Du Bois in which he indicates that, because there are fewer Black capitalists, class struggle occurs chiefly between Whites and Blacks, OCSC 1933: p.712). For Du Bois, increasingly in the years around the First World War and expanding into the 1920s, racism and capitalism are intertwined. WWI is ultimately a war caused by empires seeking to control territory around the world (as well as in the Balkans), and subjugating the local peoples to be producers of raw materials for the metropoles as well as to be consumers of the products from the imperialist centers (AROW 1915; DARK 1920). According to such a theoretical perspective, capitalist relations via imperialism abroad and production at home often pit White workers against workers of color (DARK 1920). Overall, "there can be no doubt that monopoly of machines and materials is a chief source of the power of the industrial tyrants over the common worker...." (OROM 1920).
Du Bois hopes that Pan-Africanism, and later anti-colonialism more broadly, will target the imperialist oppression. At home, socialism in the U.S.A. is a movement seeking to end capitalist domination. Yet American socialism also includes a long history of individuals and organizations perpetuating racism and discrimination. Du Bois experiences this in the early 1900s (D.L. Lewis1993). Accordingly, for Du Bois, combating capitalist exploitation of persons of color via socialism and socialist organizations would not necessarily eradicate racism and ethnic discrimination unless and until the advocates of socialism challenge such forms of oppression via their actions and norms (RTWC 1933).
For Du Bois, the key to eradicating capitalistic racial oppression is democracy, a democracy wherein popular control based on the equality of the citizens would direct economic production decisions on what to make to address the needs of the people (RSOD 1938 [pp.1063-5]). He indicates that the means to effect popular control would include, not only elected representatives making government policies, but also the workers employed in the businesses themselves. For example:
Democracy has no part in industry, save through the violence or threatened violence of the strike. No great American industry admits that it could or should be controlled by those who do its work. But unless democratic methods enter industry, democracy fails to function in other paths of life. Our political life is admittedly under the control of organized wealth and while the socialized organization of all our work proceeds, its management remains under oligarchical control and its objects are what that oligarchy decide. They may be beneficial decisions, they may be detrimental, but in no case are they arrived at by democratic methods. [IBFP 1952: p.185]
In a stark phrase, Du Bois writes, that without democratization of industry: "private profit throttles democracy" (DUSK 1940: [p.765]).
Du Bois argues that citizens can and should exert production decisions, including via elected politicians, because private businesses are not fully private. Production is social in that it requires the cooperation of workers, capitalists, and governments. Moreover, manufacturing and extractive processes generate products and by-products that affect society, both overall and in particular locales. Indeed, according to Du Bois, many governments in the industrialized West and the Communist bloc already control, via ownership and/or regulations, many of the major sectors of the economy.
[Note —Social Production and Individual Decisions]
In his rendition of the story of his arrest and indictment by the U.S. government for failing to register as an alleged foreign agent, In Battle for Peace; The Story of My 83rd Birthday, Du Bois ends his account with a Marxian analysis of capitalist exploitation and the potential for democracy to curb that oppression.
[. . . .] Let us turn to the facts concerning wealth and its ownership in the United States.
Production in fields which are today of dominant importance is not an individual adventure but a vast social undertaking. A large number of persons work together in numberless ways, in widely separated places and for periods varying from a week or less to ten years or more to produce a valuable product. The exact proportion of their contributions to the final result by physical or ethical measure, by kind and efficiency of effort, by length and intensity of labor or by money value, cannot be determined accurately by any mathematical method. The product of modern industry is a social product and belongs to society. It should be distributed in accord with the highest standards of social justice.
Wealth is not and never was entirely the result of individual effort; it always involved some measure of group co-operation. And today more than ever before, wealth is the result of social effort added to the bounty of nature. Property is the legal right to use wealth; the wealth may stem from your own effort or from the effort of others; it may come from seizure of natural resources; it may come from inheritance or gift, from cheating or gambling, from theft. There is nothing sacred about property; everything depends on the social welfare involved in its accumulation and use.
This means that property and its use are proper subjects of political consideration and of democratic decision. There has been in America too much cheating and theft in the acquisition of property, and too much injustice in its use. Huge properties have been accumulated by highway robbery, monopoly of natural resources belonging of right to all, and even by transgressing the very law which protects the rights of the public.
Our present economic problem stems from the fact that while production is increasingly a social process, the distribution of its results still remains largely a matter of the individual judgment of persons who happen to have the power or who seize the power to decide, and on the basis of concepts of property and income which no longer correspond to fact.
The paradox which consequently upsets the labor world is that despite the indispensable co-operation of laborers, managers and capitalists, inventors and thinkers in current industry, when the results and increasingly valuable results are distributed, most of the laborers get less than is necessary for decent life, while many of the capitalists get more than they need or can spend. And particularly, capitalists get the power to direct the use of the residue for any purpose which they choose. [IBFP 1952: pp.168-169]
Du Bois's words call to mind Karl Marx's "first contradiction" of capitalism: the social production of goods and services, but the private appropriation of profits. See also Du Bois speech's "Socialism and the American Negro" (SANT 1960).
[End of Note .]
Seeking to implement Marxism into practice, Du Bois offers African Americans a solution based on socialist ideals and organized around consumer cooperatives in Black communities (DUSK [pp.706-9]). For Africana peoples in general he supports anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist efforts. Du Bois's Marxism—albeit an unorthodox one (C. Robinson 1983)—does not accord with the Black and White liberals of the NAACP and indeed with most mainstream civil rights organizations. Du Bois's suggested solution of African American consumer cooperatives runs counter to the views of many NAACP leaders as well as the mission of the organization to promote the integration of American educational and political institutions. Many consider that such cooperatives would reinforce the segregation that they have been combating. And Du Bois's burgeoning Marxian analyses leave many suspicious during a time of anti-Communism (Mullen 2016).
[Note —Du Bois's Work on Cooperative Organizations]
Du Bois has studied cooperative organizations within African American communities several decades earlier in the third published Atlanta University study, Some Efforts of American Negroes for Their Own Social Betterment (AUP-3 1898). In addition, in his first novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece, the Black female protagonist, Zora, coordinates a strategy with Black farmers to gain economic independence from the White planters and their dominating control by creating a cooperative venture, cultivating land in secret so as to avoid the gaze of those Whites who might destroy their efforts (QSF 1911).
In 1918 Du Bois works with several others to establish the "Negro Co-operative Guild" in an attempt to create consumer cooperatives in a few states. The guild lasts only a few years, and he believes that a successful co-operative movement would require "more preliminary spade work, with poplar education both of consumers and managers" (DUSK 1940 [pp.758-759]). In these ways, Du Bois's earlier research seems to have informed his policy proposal of consumers' cooperatives when he argues for them in the 1930s and later (ex., OCSC 1933).
[End of Note .]
Du Bois's adaptation of Marxian thinking to study persons of color does not alter his push for social research. But it does modify the conceptualization of Africana agency with which he has long been concerned. The Du Bois of The Souls of Black Folk argues that Black individuals can achieve economic and social success, if they are released from the hindrances of isolating, segregating discrimination, and if they fully embrace the moral norms presumably practiced by the successful and elite Blacks and Whites. However, as Du Bois forcefully expresses his Marxist thinking in Darkwater (DARK 1920) and in later works such as The World and Africa (WAA 1947), he connects Black oppression to world historical movements like imperialism and globalizing capitalism. He thereby interprets the historical dynamic of Blacks as involving more than unfettering individuals from oppressive structures of racism and entailing more than accepting capitalist forms of individual morality. In short, Du Bois connects the racial group and racialized individuals to broader historical movements for change and justice, including struggles of indigenous peoples against imperialism and workers against capitalist exploitation via the dominant and dominating social relations of production. Ending racism, accordingly, will not end the overall oppression of persons of color. Du Bois's developing thoughts and practices intersect race and class (and in a evident but less emphasized sense, gender).
It is during what becomes his third program for African American freedom that Du Bois leaves the editorship of The Crisis in 1934. Although "leaving" is accurate, the term does not reflect the tensions that have arisen between him and the board of the NAACP, tensions that prompt Du Bois to resign (DDRC 1934). Du Bois's increasingly radical, indeed Marxian-inspired analyses, and his proposed solutions to the economic and racial problems in the U.S.A. do not accord with the views of the board members. For Du Bois, person of color continue to face the unstinting antagonism and the pervasive apathy of many Whites, and continue to live in a society dominated by White-supremacist policies such as segregation and disfranchisement. We can only imagine his frustration or even anger.
Du Bois's Third Program of Research/Activism—and Later
Du Bois's third program starts in 1928, prior to his exit from The Crisis editorship, and continues into the 1940s, when he publishes "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom". During that time Du Bois's heterodox Marxian framework is evident in his research and his activism, most prominently in terms of the variables to research and the interpretations made. There are two major projects to stress during this third period. Du Bois plans to create a multi-year research project studying the life conditions of African Americans. HBCUs should be at the center of such research and Atlanta University should become the focal point, directing the combined efforts of Black Land-grant colleges (A68 1968: pp.300ff). Ultimately, the new multi-year research program does not come to pass, but another of his contributions during this time period, Black Reconstruction, does remain a lasting influence.
In his autobiography Du Bois explicitly details the research agenda designed to study African American life conditions with the explicit aim to improve their conditions and possibilities (A68 1968: 316). In effect, Du Bois is advocating for a return to his initial path of research/activism (the Atlanta University studies), but with the notable difference: first, Du Bois explicitly states that an association of HBCUs should be the primary research institutions because (a) Blacks should be the agents of racial justice and social change; and (b) whites do not have a complete understanding of Black concerns and lives; and second, accurate and ongoing data are needed so that policy goals can be made for African Americans and their communities to thrive during economically depressive times (see also AUP-21 1941 and AUP-22 1943).
Throughout this project I have often used the phrase research/activism. By so doing I wish to close the distance between research and activism, just as Du Bois wrestles with across his life. Conventional research has two terms associated with it: objectivity and neutrality. Are they synonymous? During his third program and beyond, the distinction between neutrality and objectivity surfaces very explicitly. Such a concern has existed in prior years; indeed, he regularly worries about researcher bias. Nonetheless, in the 1930s and beyond Du Bois directly confronts the issue in a much more extensive way through several texts, although he does so without specifically using the terms neutrality and objectivity. My interpretation derives from his own words.
In conventional scholarship the researcher separates him-/herself from the object of research. This relationship is dichotomous so as to not be invested in what is studied. That is, researchers should not have any personal, financial, or professional stake in what or who is studied, or in the outcomes of the studies, all so as to avoid conflicts of interest. The distance between researcher and researched can be enhanced methodologically via the design of the project, such as using double-blind experimental protocols or using a team approach (the latter of which Du Bois suggests).
On matters of race and ethnicity (and presumably gender, and sexual identity and orientation), Du Bois considers that researchers are embodied because they are also part of the society being studied. They cannot be completely distant, even while confronting the data they are gathering and studying. For Du Bois, researchers must accept the objectivity of the facts themselves, because the data exists independently of them and their wishes. The objectivity of the facts may involve an "unpleasant truth" (SOPE 1937: ¶ 5), but all the while the researchers should be aware that their embodiment means they cannot be fully neutral.
Because embodiment influences, even mediates, neutrality, Du Bois indicates that he, as an African American scholar, will start with those he knows. He writes in "Phylon: Science or Propaganda" (PSOP 1944):
"The field of social science is one. It must be pursued without reference to personal interests. But it must begin with the near and known as a starting point; and then despite temptation, set goals of dispassionate and ruthless adherence to truth. It can no longer find scientific refuge in detachment from its subject matter; nor just as surely, none in refusal to regard its own personal problems as subjects of scientific investigation." [PSOP 1944: pp.6-7]
Du Bois as a Black man is not distant from fellow African Americans. He faces similar problems in a racist world. His education and profession probably will not save him from violent Whites. He has a stake in the outcome of research to promote justice, even if he simultaneously will adhere to the facts—whether positive, negative, or indifferent—that are uncovered during the inquiries.
In addition, Whites cannot be fully neutral because they are also embodied. In an attempt to secure funding for his proposed Encyclopedia of the Negro Du Bois writes a 1937 memorandum to Anson Phelps Stokes, arguing that White researchers may not have had sufficient interactions with Blacks to develop an understanding of the pressing race issues of the time (MSEN 1937: 161). Du Bois also writes in the memorandum to Stokes that a multi-racial team can generate objective research insofar as Whites and Blacks will "balance", so to speak, each other's perspectives (MSEN 1937: 161). Conclusions from such a team will be based on factual evidence that any fair-minded researchers regardless of race will presumably acknowledge. In short, objectivity is not neutrality, but it is possible regardless of researcher embodiment. (For further details on the basis of my interpretation of Du Bois's implicit distinction between objectivity and neutrality, read the note below).
[Note —Objectivity Distinguished From Neutrality]
Thomas Haskell, discussing the historical profession, distinguishes between neutrality and objectivity. Neutrality involves "detachment, an undeniably ascetic capacity to achieve some distance from one's own spontaneous perceptions and convictions, to imagine how the world appears in another's eyes, to experimentally adopt perspectives that do not come naturally...." (Haskell 1998: 148-149).
For Haskell, objectivity is the result, or "product", of detachment, fairness and honesty (Haskell 1998: 150). Neutrality is not possible because of the passions and interests as well as the political commitments that scholars bring to their studies. However, as Haskell writes: "Detachment functions in this manner not by draining us of passion, but by helping to channel our intellectual passions in such a way as to ensure collision with rival perspectives." (Haskell 1998: 150) He writes further on the distinction between neutrality and objectivity:
The very possibility of historical scholarship as an enterprise distinct from propaganda requires of its practitioners that vital minimum of ascetic self-discipline that enable a person to do such things as abandon wishful thinking, assimilate bad news, discard pleasing interpretations that cannot pass elementary tests of logic, and most important of all, suspend or bracket one's own perception long enough to enter sympathetically into the alien and possibly repugnant perspectives of rival thinkers. All of these mental acts . . . require detachment, an undeniably ascetic capacity to achieve some distance from one's own spontaneous perceptions and convictions, to imagine how the world appears in another's eyes, to experimentally adopt perspectives that do not come naturally...." [Haskell 1998: 148-149; Emphasis removed]
[End of Note .]
In his 1968 autobiography Du Bois offers a more scathing critique of White scholars who have been researching African Americans. For Du Bois, many White scholars may not be aware of the intricacies of researching persons of color; indeed, many would be the "car-window sociologists" whom he criticizes in The Souls of Black Folk (SBF 1903: Ch.VIII). Superficial observations and scanty, unrepresentative data can lead to faulty interpretations, filled with presumptions, including ideas of inherent racial inferiority, which in turn can lead to erroneous conclusions and policymaking. White researchers can help, but Black schools should be the primary research institutions doing this research. He strongly advises that "the truth of the investigation should be brought back to the control of an association of Negro colleges" [....] "in order to make sure got the whole undistorted picture is there and that the complete interpretation is made by those most competent to do it, through their own lives and training." (Du Bois A68 1968: pp.313-314)
Ultimately and unfortunately, the plan for a reinvigorated multi-year project collapses because the Atlanta University's Board of Trustees forced Du Bois to retire due to his age. The school's Board of Trustees do not have any interest in a renewed set of Atlanta University studies.
During his third program Du Bois writes Black Reconstruction, which many consider to be his greatest work. It is his largest single book, exceeding 700 pages. It is historical research based on secondary sources rather than the documents historians would conventionally seek, which are often found in archives and repositories. But such archival sources are not available to Du Bois. Racial discrimination prevents his entry into Southern archives (and how many Northern ones?). The embodiment of a researcher matters. In Black Reconstruction, Du Bois explicitly argues that escaping enslaved persons participated mightily in their own emancipation during the course of the U.S. Civil War by providing soldiers and laborers to the Union forces and by denying the same to the South. Moreover, he holds that during the Reconstruction Era the emancipated Black communities strive to fulfill the ideals of U.S. democracy by creating institutions that support its infrastructure, such as the Freedman's Bank, and the public school system in the South.
Du Bois emphasizes African American agency, especially framed in terms of Marxian class terms. Despite that important and distinctive, later theoretical dimension, his overall idea of agency will seem similar to what he has presented in the early 1900s: he holds in Black Reconstruction that African Americans possess a fundamental equality with other races. He writes in the book's prefatory note, "To the Reader":
"It would be only fair to the reader to say frankly in advance that the attitude of any person toward this story will be distinctly influenced by his theories of the Negro race. If he believes that the Negro in America and in general is an average and ordinary human being, who under given environment develops like other human beings, then he will read this story and judge it by the facts adduced. If, however, he regards the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation, who can never successfully take part in modern civilization and whose emancipation and enfranchisement were gestures against nature, then he will need something more than the sort of facts that I have set down. But this latter person, I am not trying to convince. I am simply pointing out these two points of view, so obvious to Americans, and then without further ado, I am assuming the truth of the first. In fine, I am going to tell this story as though Negroes were ordinary human beings, realizing that this attitude will from the first seriously curtail my audience." [BREC 1935]
Compared with his "Souls" essay, where he expresses concern about being less cosmopolitan that Whites (SBFI 1904), Du Bois is much more bold in his prefatory note, perhaps even dismissive of those who do not accept the assumption of Africana fundamental equality.
Some of the many issues arising during Du Bois's third program period include:
• The Great Depression occurs.
• World War 2 is fought.
• The Cold War continues.
• Nuclear Disarmament and peace campaigns emerge.
• Pan-Africanism remains.
• Decolonization increases.
• The United Nations is formed.
During the third program and afterwards, how does his research, and indeed research in general, inform his activism? With the exception of Black Reconstruction, Du Bois does not conduct the large-scale social research of his earlier years. He is, however, studying current events and is presenting his analyses in numerous forums, newspaper columns, and professional associations, both at home and abroad. Moreover, Du Bois's understanding of the role of research broadly defined means that the sciences will occupy important roles in the activities involved in decolonization and in creating a post-colonial society. The sciences also will provide information on industrial production, he holds. Nonetheless, despite the knowledge possessed by the sciences they lack the normative "why" we should decolonize and why we should liberate and empower citizens. For that role, he argues in Color and Democracy, religion will find a place. (Du Bois's views on religion and science requires more detail; view the note below.)
[Note —Du Bois on Science and Religion]
Du Bois's 1945 book, Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace offers an extended discussion of the relationship between science and religion (CDCP 1945). For him, science is vital in the decolonization process and in the building of post-colonial societies. He claims that science can know what to do, but not why we should do so. Hence, science faces limitations because it cannot ethically justify actions in the world. In the book Du Bois criticizes organized religions for supporting oppression and exploitation across time, yet both they and science provide complementary roles in social change. He writes:
"Notwithstanding this [critique of organized religion], it is all too clear today that if we are to have a sufficient motive for the uplift of backward peoples, for the redemption and progress of colonials, such a motive can be found only in the faith and ideals of organized religion; and the great task that is before us is to join this belief and the consequent action with the scientific knowledge and efficient techniques of economic reform.
"It would be unfair to myself, and perhaps to others, if I did not frankly say that my attitude toward organized religion is distinctly critical. I cannot believe that any chosen body of people or special organization of mankind has received a direct revelation of ultimate truth which is denied to earnest scientific effort. I admit readily that it would be most satisfactory if instead of occupying a little island of knowledge in the midst of vast stretches of unknown truth, we could with conviction and utter faith plant ourselves on a completely revealed knowledge of the ends and aims of the universe. But no matter how satisfying this would be, it does not therefore follow that it is true, or that those who assert it and believe in it have the right to persecute and condemn those who cannot accept urgent desire, or myth and fairy tale, as valid truth. It may well be that God has revealed ultimate knowledge to babes and sucklings, but that is no reason why I, one who does not believe this miracle, should surrender to infants the guidance of my mind and effort. No light of faith, no matter how kindly and beneficent, can in a world of reason guide human beliefs to truth unless it is continually tested by pragmatic fact.
"On the other hand, I must just as frankly acknowledge that the majority of the best and earnest people of this world are today organized in religious groups, and that without the co-operation of the richness of their emotional experience, and the unselfishness of their aims, science stands helpless before crude fact and selfish endeavor. The reason for this religious majority may be inexperience and lack of education; it may be divine grace and human sin. Whatever it is, the fact is unquestionable today.
"Is there not, then, a chance to find common ground for a program of human betterment which seeks by means of known and tested knowledge the ideal ends of faith? This would involve on the part of the Church a surrender of dogma to the extent of being willing to work for human salvation this side of eternity, and to admit the possibility of vast betterment here and now—a path the Church has often followed. The Church should in colonies voluntarily adopt a self-denying ordinance: not to stress doctrine or dogma until social uplift in education, health, and economic organization have progressed far enough to enable colonial peoples intelligently and independently to compare the religion offered with their inherited cultures. This would involve on the part of science the admission that what we know is greatly exceeded by what we do not know, and that there may be realms in time and space of infinitely more importance than the problems of this small world. Nevertheless, a realistic program of making this world better now ought to combine the efforts of Church and science, of missionary effort and social reform." [CDCP 1945: pp.136-138]
We will observe that in such works as Color and Democracy (CDCP 1945), "Of the Ruling of Men" (OROM 1920), and "The Nature of Intellectual Freedom" (IFRE. 1949), Du Bois holds very optimistic views about the sciences, both natural and social. He seems to assume that the researchers will be able to reach an understanding among themselves about the studies and the corresponding results, and that they will be able to minimize or counter-balance biases tainting research and its conclusions.
[End of Note .]
Du Bois's unorthodox Marxian theorizing highlights tactics to use in long term strategies and also delineates bottlenecks, especially in terms of how racial issues can come into conflict with class (ex., White workers versus Black workers). Moreover, he promotes the idea and practice of inter-racial alliances between and among persons of color around the globe. As one case, Du Bois is very supportive of India's struggles for independence, so much so that in his novel, Dark Princess, he foregrounds an Indian woman as the female protagonist.
During the third program and beyond, Du Bois very actively engages in activism for justice. His Marxian analyses inform his participation in various activities:
• Peace campaigns
• Decolonization debates and Pan-Africanism
• Commenting on the creation of the United Nations (including his part in a subsequent petition to the UN to have the international organization tackle the discrimination in the U.S.A.)
• Running for a U.S. Senate seat for the state of New York on a third-party ticket.
The U.S. government tracks Du Bois him and surveils his speeches and travels, including his trips abroad to the USSR, the PRC, and other countries (U.S. F.B.I. Multiple Dates). He does not trust U.S. government information on the Communist polities and during his travels he does not witness the hardships experienced by, or atrocities committed against, the people of those countries. His pronouncements in favor of Communist regimes focus on the ideals of Marxism and his often idealistic interpretations of those existing regimes often lead him to de-emphasize the tyrannies being practiced (ex., D.L. Lewis 2000). Du Bois believes that human reason and will are compatible with socialism, a socio-political system in which citizen participation and government control, including regulations, could provide for humans wants, promote the free expression of artistic endeavors, and ensure social justice. And he believes that the pursuit of knowledge is abiding: Du Bois researches into the last months of his life (ex., D.L. Lewis 2000).
In Closing
As Du Bois's life progresses, the ambivalence of his 1904 "Souls" essay—in which the conventional research methods do not adequately convey the experiences of marginalized Blacks—changes to a more adamant assertion that social research has serious limitations. For the later Du Bois, research should continue, but must be directed to the purpose of enhancing Africana equality and freedom in a world in which many Whites do not accept the postulate of Black agency and humanity. We must embrace the research/activism nexus in order to enhance the life chances of Africana communities.
For Du Bois, scholarly research speaks clearly to activism, both directly and indirectly. The credo of the scholar is to know about the phenomenon of reality. And the scholar of society and politics has an obligation to know the truth. With reference to the racism that has suffused American society, he writes:
[. . . .] What tenet of our morality are we teaching today so freely, plainly and persistently! I fear the atrophy of soul which this teaching must bring. Both mentally and morally white folk today are suffering from this attempt to transmute a physical accident into a moral deed—to draw unreal distinctions among human souls.
Mentally the blight has fallen on American science. The race problem is not insoluble if the correct answer is sought. It is insoluble if the wrong answer is insisted upon, as it has been insisted upon for thrice a hundred years. A very moderate brain can show that two and two is four. But no human ingenuity can make that sum three or five. This American science has long attempted to do. It is made itself the handmaid of a miserable prejudice. In its attempt to justify the treatment of black folk it has repeatedly supprest [sic] evidence, misquoted authority, distorted fact and deliberately lied. It is wonderful that in the very lines of social study where America should shine it has done nothing. [SWFI 1910: p.342=¶¶ 23-24]
For Du Bois, the research/activism nexus—joined into one unit to signify the critical removal of a methodological distance between the two—is important. It is a central way to highlight the need to focus on the conditions and experiences of a group, community, or people, however defined as a unit of analysis. If the members of that group, community, and/or people are experiencing, compared to other units of analysis, differences in everyday norms, political laws, and societal conditions, then this can, and should be, investigated. Historically, White scholars in the mainstreams of research often have not taken to heart such differential experiences as problematic. They often have considered the norms, laws, and conditions to be the result of something intrinsically cultural or genetic about the group itself or about individuals of the group. (Exceptions to this mainstream perspective exist, of course, and include in general Jane Addams and Franz Boas, among others). Black scholars take such differential experiences seriously because they are part of the group and perhaps have endured the experiences and conditions that they study. Black scholars, along with allies, seek after the social causes of the behaviors observed.
Du Bois's own experiences of marginalization and his "intimate soul contact" prompt the focus of his research on the oppression of African Americans and African-diasporic peoples. His research has several distinctive features:
.
Methodological triangulation: We must conduct conventional research using quantitative and qualitative methods, in addition to humanities-related methods such as interpretive and historical methods (Wortham 2008; Wright II 2016).
.
Multiple sources of evidence: Data, documents, and other pieces of information are needed from local, regional, national, and cross-national sources, and can derive from fieldwork, aggregated data, and observation.
.
Framing relevant research questions: Ask why any particular behavior exists, and accordingly study individuals within groups which are likewise situated in social contexts. Do not accept the given observation or set of observations as indicative of a causal mechanism. That is, do not assume that behaviors arise from genetic and/or cultural causes that are supposedly innate, and perhaps even unchanging because that is the way "they" allegedly are. Du Bois continually challenges that view (e.g., E0RP 1909: p.209; TAUC 1904: p.59).
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Comparative techniques: When seeking generalizations, explanations, and interpretations, comparisons are needed so as to understand the variations over time and space, including the disproportionate effects of norms, policies, and conditions on the behaviors being studied. That is, differences exist, which can be used to understand better what causes behavior and what might be done to improve life opportunities, equality, and freedom.
For Du Bois, social research implicates activism, whether in the form of a secondary or primary goal (as discussed above). Make aware to all elected officials, government bureaucrats, social leaders, and everyday citizens both that policies and practices should reflect the research findings and also that a fundamental principle of empirical inquiry holds that research findings are themselves provisional because new data can potentially be gathered and analyzed. (Read about other examples of research informing government decision-making in the next note).
[Note —Other Studies Informing Governmental Decisions]
Of course, Du Bois is not alone in producing research that speaks to public policy and judicial rulings. Socially relevant, engaged projects have become increasingly common over the years. Although such engaged research is not without critics who argue that partisanship is replacing dispassionate inquiry (Tittle 2004), others would argue in favor of its importance in the quest for (progressive) social justice (Burawoy 2005; Marable 2000; Rabaka 2006).
A notable and controversial example of social research informing activism for social justice is found in the court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (U.S. Supreme Court 1954). The psychologist Kenneth Clark and others collected and analyzed data on the negative personal effects experienced by African American children in segregated environments like schools. Their legal briefs and court testimonies were considered vital, albeit controversial, social-scientific support for the efforts to end de jure discrimination in U.S. public school systems (J.P. Jackson 1998 and 2000; Kluger 1975: Ch. 14; Mody 2002).
The social sciences over the years have been utilized for a wide range of social causes from a diverse range of political perspectives (e.g., C.S. Johnson 1930; Lott & Mustard 1997; Newman 2004).
[End of Note .]
In this Introduction I also have presented Du Bois's perspective on uncertainty and unknowability, his idea of nescience. This points to the limitations of conventional research, but not on activism. Indeed, for him, various forms of activism are warranted.
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"Excluded wisdom": As his idea of "excluded wisdom" implicates, individuals—and vitally, members of marginalized groups—possess knowledge that cannot be grasped by research methods that aggregate data about persons into reductive means, medians, and formulae.
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Normative uncertainty: The normative uncertainty of values and ideals, in Du Bois's thought, foregrounds the importance of human agency and the subjectivity integral to social progress and the struggles against injustice, especially the value of equality (e.g., personal respect and equality of opportunity).
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Artistic imagination: Du Boisian nescience also speaks to artistic movements because it supports the use of our political and literary imaginations to promote alternative societies, and indeed universes, that address the existing life-situations faced by the marginalized. Such alternative worlds challenge, via the agency of Africana peoples, the oppressive practices and mythic fabrications created by White supremacism.
Du Bois's theme of nescience can be applied to 21st Century activism. See the examples in the note below.
[Note —Current Relevance of Du Boisian Nescience]
Afrofuturism: The sciences, because they rely on evidence, face an inherent difficulty. They can predict trends into the future, based on patterns in the data. But they cannot know-about the future where there is no evidence, or if not all of the evidence is or can be gathered. Science fiction creators can travel where science cannot: they can generate new realms and new forms of social relationships whenever and wherever the evidence is scanty or non-existent in the here and now. As a multifarious literary form, Afrofuturism addresses the paucity of person of color in science fiction, while simultaneously challenging the lingering White supremacism that denies Africana agency. Afrofuturists craft worlds and situations originating from the life experiences of Africana peoples. They incorporate futuristic technologies of space and time travel, often with spiritual and mystical dimensions, that are intentionally wielded in the interests of the marginalized and oppressed. Those considered to be Afrofuturists include a range of writers, musicians, film directors, and artists broadly defined, such as Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, George Clinton, Samuel R. Delany, Wanuri Kahiu, Janelle Monáe, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sun Ra (Dery 1994; Womack 2013).
As regards Du Boisian nescience, Afrofuturism incarnates the literary imagination that he espouses so as to better depict the humanity of persons of color and to fight against the one-dimensional stereotypes rife in his era and still present decades later. Du Bois is increasingly being studied as a proto-Afrofuturist (e.g., Brown & Rusert 2015; Elia 2016; Yaszek 2006).
The Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM): Motivated by the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement has organized as independent groups in various U.S. cities over the last few years. As such, BLM is a non-hierarchal movement. Nonetheless, the movement utilizes social media and the Internet to coordinate activities among the different groups and to encourage participation. BLM-related events focus on cases of violence committed by the police or others against African American men and women. The chapters also support other marginalized identities of Africana persons, including LGBTQ, differently abled, and those with prison records (BlackLivesMatter.com 2017; Joseph 2017).
As regards Du Boisian nescience, the BLM movement emphasizes that, despite all of the knowledge about violence directed against Africana persons, the direct experiences and knowledge of Africana persons is not possible for Whites. Consequently, such issues become a matter of existential concern for some of the population, and thereby their "excluded wisdom" is vital to consider in policymaking.
The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) Protests: The pipeline travels from North Dakota to Illinois, linking oil fields in the former to processing facilities in the latter. Some of the controversy arises from the fact that the pipeline passes beneath a lake, Lake Oahe in North Dakota, deemed sacred by the Native Americans in the area, who also use it as a water supply. Native Americans there and from around the U.S.A., as well as supporters among environmental and climate-justice groups, protested the pipeline. They also set up a camp within the Standing Rock Indian Reservation (North and South Dakota) in which the protestors, calling themselves the Water Protectors, lived for months. However, after losing various legal actions, the protest camp was struck by late 2016. Energy Transfer Partners, who own the DAPL, eventually completed construction and started pumping operations in May 2017 (Aisch & Lai 2017; The Intercept 2017).
As regards Du Boisian nescience, such marginalized indigenous peoples will possess the "excluded wisdom" that the dominant power structures have long denied, but which could assist in the sustainable usage and management of natural resources.
Moral Mondays: The North Carolina NAACP is credited with organizing Moral Mondays in 2013 and 2014. The Reverend William Barber is the spokesperson for the events, designed to oppose the policies put forth by the Republican-majority N.C. General Assembly. As it started and continues, Moral Mondays involve protestors, often in the thousands, who march on the state capitol at Raleigh. Arrests occur frequently because of the non-violent direct actions in which the protestors engage. The future of Moral Mondays, as the organizers maintain, involves widening the focus beyond North Carolina to focus also on opposing Republican policies in various U.S. states. The strategy will entail fusing individual progressive organizations into broader progressive coalitions (Repairers of the Breach N.D.; see also Hunter-Gault 2017; Wootson 2017).
As regards Du Boisian nescience, his idea of the normative uncertainty of values and ideals is pertinent. We pursue the values of equality and freedom and hope for justice, even if such values are not necessarily evident or else are frustratingly ephemeral. Nevertheless, motivated and inspired individuals and groups will struggle towards those ideals of a more inclusive and just world.
Further Examples Exist: Du Boisian nescience as a way to illuminate social actions is not limited to the few cases described in this presentation. Du Bois's idea that there are consequences to what we cannot know also can be applied to other cases in the U.S.A. and the world.
[End of Note .]
We humans may be morally and legally responsible for our actions and choices, but the conditions under which we exercise choice and the backgrounds that we bring (ex., education, class, identity, or gender) are themselves conditioned by material relations in society. Such relations are not necessarily fair and are not conditions which may be susceptible to our free choice (ex., who our parents are).
Yet because of his social science and its undergirding conceptions, Du Bois's research/activism nexus holds out hope for Africana peoples. He seeks to understand their social conditions and to propose solutions. That his analyses highlight social injustice is notable. That his ideas and research all too often fall on unheeding ears and hearts says much about the era in which he lives. But it also provides telling lessons for us in the 21st Century. Activism should be supported with all available knowledge. And when knowledge eludes us, let us ground our values on those ideals of justice that are pragmatically tested.
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Ξ
Nota Bene: What follows are four appendices, elaborating upon Du Bois's views on social structures and individual agency, Darwinism, Jamesian pragmatism, and uncertainty and unknowability. A fifth appendix offers print and online resources pertinent to his life and thought. After the appendices are primary sources—the textual representations of Du Bois's life, thoughts, and activism—presented as part of this demonstration project.
Appendix A: Du Bois on Social Structure and Individual Agency
Agency and structure are not terms that Du Bois specifically uses, but we can reconstruct them and their relationship from his multiple works. In a general sense, structure and agency are involved in both explanation and interpretation. An explanatory framework seeks to discover the causes of a phenomenon, such as observed behavior, while an interpretive one seeks to understand what a phenomenon, such as a cultural artifact, means (or symbolizes or signifies). Structure and agency will be recognizable in Du Bois's words. Via his scholarly inquiries, he comes to know by means of gathering information on units of analysis, that is, on individuals and groups, as well as on the social institutions and contexts of those individuals, groups, and organizations. What distinguishes Du Bois from others in his era, and what we can learn in the 21st Century, is that by situating Africana agentic individuals within racial groups within structures of societal and global power he seeks both to explain and interpret behavior and also to advance social justice by changing the oppressive social structures. This, in other words, is his research/activism nexus.
Human agency for Du Bois includes several characteristics, which we can gather from various works (ex., Black Reconstruction, BREC 1935; The World and Africa, WAA 1947). In general, human agency highlights the capacity to shape actively, and to varying degrees, their life situations. Taken as a whole, Du Bois's implicit and composite concept of Africana agency holds that Africana peoples have civilizational attainments which are meaningful contributions to world history; are fundamentally equal with other races; can develop their human potential as with any other race; and can actively and deliberatively influence the world within the flux of time (ex., TCOR 1897; TN15 1915). Agency implicates both individuals and groups of individuals. But agents, singularly or collectively, exist in larger contexts, which we can also call social structures.
Why study individuals and groups with regard to structures? For Du Bois, the key is not to focus on only one or the other. Athough individuals have a capacity to alter the world in which they live, nonetheless they cannot be conceptualized as being isolated. Rather, they are born, live, love, work, and die in social contexts which also provide them with implicit or explicit norms on how to act as well as offering opportunities for action, and constraints on action. In short, structures convey the roles, practices, values, and norms that typically are expected or required, and that persist over a long period of time. The context can also include global-spanning structures such as various historical forms of imperialism and capitalism (with its own type of imperialistic ways).
For empirical inquiries, groups and social contexts condition individual behaviors because individuals act or can potentially act in ways that follow the patterns observed in the group of which the individual is a member, or the context in which the individual lives. Such conditioned behaviors can be deemed as causally influenced. As regards interpretive studies, social contexts help us to know about what an individual as a singular being, or as a member of that larger structure, understands about the world and society, as well as her/his place and role therein. For example, being a parent has certain expectations and we can interpret the meaning of individuals' actions in terms of the structures of parenthood. But parenthood will vary over time and space, and may even vary within a society at a specific time and place. In addition, a cultural artifact or even a gesture means something within a context. A flag, which is nothing more than fabric or paper, or else a digital or photographic image, means something to members of the community represented by the flag. Knowing about the context, including the time(s) and place(s) where that artifact appears, is vital to understanding its meaning to those who made it and perpetuate its existence.
Du Bois relates human agency with social structures in many texts across his life. In order to understand social problems we must study the socio-historical conditions in relation to human actions. Du Bois explicitly formulates this in his 1898 lecture, "The Study of the Negro Problems."
[. . . .] "Before we can begin to study the Negro intelligently, we must realize definitely that not only is he affected by all the varying social forces that act on any nation at his stage of advancement, but that in addition to these there is reacting upon him the mighty power of a peculiar and unusual social environment which affects to some extent every other social force.
"In the second place we should seek to know and measure carefully all the forces and conditions that go to make up these different problems, to trace the historical development of these conditions, and discover as far as possible the probable trend of further development." [SNP 1898: ¶¶ 22-23]
Although context is vital to him, Du Bois does vary in how he formulates what structures to include in his analyses over time.
There is a difference between the earlier and later Du Bois. In his earlier texts, such as The Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois implicitly holds that racist impediments hold African Americans down. Remove such impediments and then individuals can succeed economically and the democracy can be secured, at least in terms of civil and political rights. The later Du Bois, however, takes a different stance. Even after ending racist discrimination, individuals can still face oppression in the forms of class exploitation and dehumanizing gender relations. Democracy, for the later Du Bois, still can be justified by securing individual rights, but a full democracy in the truest sense of the word, will not be achieved unless there is a democratization of industry. Hence, for the elder Du Bois, the individual is enmeshed in more social structures than racist ones alone.
For Du Bois, situating individuals in relation to structures does not absolve individuals of the responsibility to act in moral ways. Indeed, he maintains the role of free will of individuals in various texts over time. Such a structural situatedness of an individual means that we can potentially explain the behavior, but that there is also the need for individuals to change their (supposedly) errant behaviors. Du Bois expresses his well recognized elitism and Victorian sensibilities in his works.
There are theoretical advantages to using structure and agency in one's analyses. We can avoid attributing behavior, including negative actions, to intrinsic characteristics of the individual or the members of a group. Often such a form of essentialism also holds that the intrinsic factor is static or scarcely changing over time, which would mean that changes to the social context (including better opportunities) would have little or no effect on the individual and her/his (allegedly negative) behaviors. That is just the way it is, essentialism would hold. In addition, via using the concepts of structure and agency, we can avoid the reductionism of explaining a human behavior or trait (or even a cultural artifact) by attributing its existence to more basic causal factors or processes. For example, in a reductionistic analysis, we could explain our experience of a work of art in terms of the release of endorphin, but that would be explaining our reactions by neurological factors rather than by factors such as cognitive or spiritual ones.
Scholars of W.E.B. Du Bois focus on the various ways that he challenges the racial, class, and gender oppressions of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Most scholars, however, do not mention Du Bois's use of evolutionary theories in his social critiques. There are a few exceptions to this trend: ex., Anderson 1989; Morris 2105: 33-34; Rampersad 1990/1976: 98, 181; Reed 1998: 46, p.214n.44; Richardson 2017; Sullivan 2009: 9). In recent years the analyses of Du Bois's views on evolution have increased: ex., Novoa 2016; Schuller 2018; and Cormier 2018.
This overall lack of attention by scholars is understandable because Du Bois scarcely mentions Darwin or Darwinism, and when he does, he often does not elaborate. However, he does express his understanding of evolution and Darwinism in several works of the early 1900s. In 1904 he delivers a talk to public school teachers in Washington D.C., "Heredity and the Public Schools", which offers several important aspects of his understanding of evolution (HAPS 1904). Also in 1904 he publishes "The Future of the Negro Race in America" (FNRA 1904). The other two works appear in 1909. Du Bois delivers "Evolution of the Race Problem" at the National Negro Conference, which is part of the process that led to the founding of the NAACP (EORP 1909). The fourth work is his biography on John Brown, in particular the book's last chapter entitled "The Legacy of John Brown" (JB 1909). In such works Du Bois uses evolution-based arguments in order to counter a prevailing interpretation of Darwin: namely, "dog-eat-dog" Social Darwinism.
Those deemed to be Social Darwinists typically do not consider that physical and mental capacities and traits acquired in one generation will be passed on across succeeding generations. Social Darwinists involve relating survival of the fittest and natural selection to society and to social policies. Benjamin K. Hays illustrates a social Darwinism that leads to White supremacist conclusions (Hays 1904). Although some espousing Social Darwinism are White supremacists, not all Social Darwinists support, or seem to support, the idea of innate racial hierarchies and racially inegalitarian practices even though they do support survival of the fittest (ex., William Graham Sumner 1883, 1899). Often advocates of survival of the fittest, like Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner, are politically and economically laissez faire, recommending no government involvement to alleviate human suffering or poverty (Spencer 1896: 313; Sumner 1883).
[Note —Some Contemporaries on Darwin and Evolution]
Numerous authors from the 19th into the 21st Centuries have written on the consequences of Darwinian evolution for understanding society and humans (e.g., Bowler 1983; Giddings 1909; Kidd 1894; Kropotkin 1904; Russett 1976).
William Graham Sumner mentions a common view about evolution. In the quotation below Sumner is referencing evolution in relation to the idea of natural equality of humanity, which typically holds (especially when considered in light of natural law) that all individuals are equal by nature in the sense that each possesses the same rights as all other humans.
[. . . .] The doctrine of evolution, instead of supporting the natural equality of all men, would give a demonstrations of their inequality; and the doctrine of the struggle for existence would divorce liberty and equality as incompatible with each other. [W.G. Sumner 1889: p.295]
Observe that Sumner distinguishes between evolution and the struggle for existence, considering each as a doctrine. He does not specify whether he views the latter as part of the former, or else as something different. Darwin's theory of evolution comes to include the phrase "survival of the fittest" in the fifth edition of Origins as a result of Herbert Spencer's influence.
Other contemporaries also consider that Darwinian evolution undermines equality. Some accept this, arguing that inequality is natural and so racial hierarchies are likewise natural (ex., W. Smith 1906: pp.30-36). Others however criticize evolution and Darwin for considering humans as nothing more than animals. Such thinking disillusions us by drawing us away from God (ex., W. Bryan 1921: pp.46-50), as well as diminishes our capacity to change the world for the better (ex., Hobhouse 1904: pp.84-94).
For John Dewey, evolutionary theory is significant for social change precisely because there is no necessary end goal for human development. Dewey holds that there has been an "intellectual transformation effected by the Darwinian logic":
"Interest shifts from the wholesale essence back of special changes to the question of how these special changes serve and defeat concrete purposes; shifts from an intelligence that shaped things once for all to the particular intelligences which things are even now shaping; shifts from an ultimate goal of good to the direct increments of justice and happiness that intelligent administration of existent conditions may beget and that present carelessness or stupidity will destroy or forgo." [Dewey 1909: p.96]
Dewey here concentrates on how Darwinism encourages incremental adjustments on the path to ameliorating social problems.
William James, one of Du Bois's professors at Harvard University, also addresses Darwinian evolution (1897: p.216ff). James theorizes individual actors within a context of natural selection. James, true to his radical individualism, stresses the great "man" (woman) in relation to his/her social environment. The great individual is generated by chance (random) processes within the human body. The social environment selects, to use James's own word, the individual for greatness because of the traits possessed by the individual. That person possesses what is needed at that point in time and space. Despite what we might expect from his conception of the "Talented Tenth" (T10 1903), Du Bois does not emphasize in his formulation of Darwinism the singular, great individual or a small group of such individuals (EORP 1909; FNRA 1904; JB 1909; HAPS 1904). Although Du Bois discusses Darwinism in John Brown, he formulates evolution in terms of "social self-realization" and not in terms of "Great Individuals".
[End of Note .]
In "The Future of the Negro Race in America" Du Bois argues that Darwinism is not necessarily socially repressive.
"But do the theories of Darwin and Spencer, properly interpreted, support any such crude views of justice and right and the spread of civilisation as those current today?" [FNRA 1904: ¶ 20]
Indeed, for Du Bois and others, Darwinism can be used for positive social goals. The issue becomes how to interpret Darwin so as to emphasize how Darwinian principles can be applied in socially uplifting ways. In particular, Du Bois faces a problem that also affects other social reformers. Darwinian evolution, in the strictest sense of its originator, does not need—and indeed directly excludes—an intentional actor/agent, whether deity or human, from the process of natural selection.
Whether or not such interpretations and applications by Du Bois are truly and fully Darwinian is beyond the scope of this project. Also, it is important to caution that Du Bois is not addressing all salient aspects of Darwin's theory, or any related Darwinian or non-Darwinian theories. Rather, he is counter-attacking the application of evolution, especially certain concepts, to Africana peoples and to African Americans in particular. Accordingly, Du Bois's theorizing is not a comprehensive analysis of Darwinian thinking in the circum-1900 era. (Read Bowler 1983 and Hamlin 2014 for more details of that era).
Du Bois utilizes several Darwinian concepts in the aforementioned works, even if he does not necessarily label them in the conventional manner. His concepts include selection (and the corresponding "survival of the fittest"), heredity, and the role of the environment.
Selection: "Survival of the fittest" is a hallmark of natural selection, which involves an organism's struggles to survive. According to Darwin, the struggle arises from an individual organism in conflict with other individual organisms of that species over the needs of life. Such organisms also can struggle with the physical environment (ex., drought or famine). Struggles, for Darwin do not necessarily involve fights to the death. Moreover, he acknowledges that cooperation among individuals of a species may also occur (Darwin 1871: Chapter V).
In "Evolution" (and "Legacy") Du Bois is very clear that "survival of the fittest" arises from a natural selection of "brute force" and guns, rather than "mental stamina and moral fitness" (EORP ¶¶ 20-22=LOJB: ¶¶ 36-37). As a result, the "survival of the fittest" has not preserved the best, but rather the worst among the Whites in terms of race and class distinctions (EORP ¶¶ 23-24=LOJB: ¶¶ 38-39). He thus attacks the supremacist claim that Whites are the superior race on the planet. For Du Bois, abolishing race and class distinctions will generate, he writes, "the survival of the fittest by peaceful personal and social selection, a selection all the more effective because free democracy and equality of opportunity allow the best to rise to their rightful place." (EORP 1909: ¶ 23)
In "Evolution" and "Legacy" Du Bois emphasizes social selection, rather than natural selection, because humans, he contends, no longer have to worry about the physical environment for humanity's continued existence (EORP ¶ 23=LOJB ¶ 39). He writes: "the era of physical struggle for survival has passed away among human beings and that there is plenty of room accessible on earth for all...." (EORP ¶ 22=LOJB ¶ 37). In his definition of social selection, Du Bois seems to emphasize cooperation among humans rather than zero-sum competition (see also Dewey & Tufts 1909: 371-372). He writes:
"So to-day we are told that free racial contact—or "social equality" as southern patois has it—means contamination of blood and lowering of ability and culture. It need mean nothing of the sort. Abolition of class distinction does not mean universal intermarriage of stocks, but rather the survival of the fittest by peaceful personal and social selection, a selection all the more effective because free democracy and equality of opportunity allow the best to rise to their rightful place." [EORP 1909: ¶ 23]
Du Bois's definition of social selection does not comport with more conventional definitions of his era or later, which tend to emphasize, for example, zero-sum competition for jobs or control over territory (Baldwin 1897: 181-182), or else the "social infrastructure from which offspring emerge" (Roughgarden 2012).
Heredity: In a speech Du Bois delivers in March 1904 before school teachers in D.C. he sets forth what is his most detailed interpretation of Darwinian thought and his critique of (neo-)Lamarckism (HAPS 1904). Du Bois, citing August Weismann, accepts that acquired traits are not inherited by offspring and that this presents, not a setback, but rather an opportunity for education (HAPS 1904: ¶ 15). As Du Bois writes, children receive their physical heredity from their parents, but they receive their knowledge about the world from society at large. Du Bois writes:
"The human child receives its body and the physical bases of life from its parents, but it receives its thoughts, the larger part of its habits, its tricks of doing, its religion, its whole conception of what it is and what the whole world about it is from the society in which it is placed; and this heredity which is not physical at all has been aptly called social heredity." [HAPS 1904: ¶ 16]
Du Bois's use of "social heredity" seems to agree with others of his era (HAPS 1904: ¶¶ 16,19; also Baldwin 1897: 57-64). In the "Heredity" speech he also employs a synonymous term, "social heritage", and with more frequency (HAPS 1904: ¶ 21=p.50; ¶ 25=p.51; ¶ 26=p.52).
Social heredity is also in line with Du Bois's understanding of social selection and his overall emphasis on bettering the social conditions of marginalized communities. As he indicates, "the public school of today is the largest and most efficient single organ for transmitting the social heritage of men" (HAPS ¶ 21=p.50). Hence, public education, for Du Bois, provides a vital way to overcome, or at least lessen, the deleterious effects of poverty and negative social surroundings, all of which are less conducive to a productive life.
The Environment: In Darwinian evolutionary theory, natural selection operates on (genetically induced) variations among individuals of a species existing within a local environment. That physical environment selects, so to speak, the traits among the organisms which are more favorable to survival and ultimately to reproduction. Darwin talks of the environment in terms of the conditions of life. Although an integral component in evolutionary theorizing, the environment is taken as a given. The environment exists; it simply "is". And we do not question nature. Similarly speaking with regard to humans, the social environment, and the attendant social relations among groups, can be taken "as is"—something that exists and cannot be challenged because that is the way things are. Likewise, Social Darwinists promoting laissez faire policies discourage the use of government to aid the poor because they consider that society is an unchangeable given.
However, Du Bois questions the naturalization of the social environment. In a passage where he is discussing social heritage, he implicates the social setting. He puts forward a thought experiment on the role of social heredity:
"[T]ake for instance a boy; he is born and reared in the slums of New York; conceive now a boy of actually similar endowment, born on a farm in Ohio; that you are going to have two entirely different men under such circumstances is as clear as noonday. But why? It is not [at] all necessary that they should have had a different beginning in the world, that they should have sprung from a different kind of human seed; we may indeed conceive them to be own brothers; and yet in the one place the social influences of the slums of New York are going to form a street Arab, [sic] quick, keen, depraved, perhaps criminal, while the surroundings of the other boy are going to give to the world a slower, more honest, and more open nature; nor is it the mere physical surroundings that are going to make this difference; it is the spiritual surroundings, the thought, the talk, the economic organization, the different ways in which these two different worlds conceive themselves as parts of some larger world; and so vast and important are these social surroundings to any human being, either today or yesterday, that it is undoubtedly true that nine tenths of what a man is, depends on social rather than on physical heredity." [HAPS 1904: ¶ 16=p.49; the bracketed "[all]" was added by Herbert Aptheker.]
Based on the language in this passage, Du Bois focuses on the social relations of class and race, while also ignoring the potential concerns of gender and ethnicity. Also in this passage, he does not take the social environment as given, something that can be ignored. The environment must be taken to theoretical task as a structural constraint on human actions. But it also centers our attention on the opportunities for change, which can be incorporated into social policies.
Darwinism as "Social Self-Realization": Du Bois's idea of social heredity is implicated in how he reframes Darwinian theory in terms of "social self-realization", emphasizing freedom and equality for an "endless chain of selves". He writes:
"What the age of Darwin has done is to add to the eighteenth century idea of individual worth the complementary idea of physical immortality of the human race. And this, far from annulling or contracting the idea of human freedom, rather emphasizes its necessity and eternal possibility—the boundlessness and endlessness of possible human achievement. Freedom has come to mean not individual caprice or aberration but social self-realization in an endless chain of selves, and freedom for such development is not the denial but the central assertion of the evolutionary theory. So, too, the doctrine of human equality passes through the fire of scientific inquiry not obliterated but transfigured; not equality of present attainment but equality of opportunity for unbounded future attainment is the rightful demand of mankind." [EORP 1909: ¶ 19=LOJB ¶ 35]
Such a passage might be interpreted to mean that Du Bois is indicating that evolutionary theory is socially progressive. This is not what scientists of today argue is the import of Darwinian evolution and its modern synthesis. Although Darwin himself included language, for example in Origins, that speaks of evolutionary progress, modern interpreters hold that Darwin understands, and Darwinian logic upholds, that evolution is not progressive and that no organism is better morally than any another.
I suggest that Du Bois himself avoids explicitly endorsing social progress as the result of evolutionary processes. His emphasis on freedom and equality as resulting from evolution is not about inevitable social progress for African Americans. It is not about a deterministically necessary end-point, despite his use of the word necessity. Rather, Du Bois emphasizes how evolution as social self-realization highlights the potential to advance over time to the extent that the preconditions underpinning possible advancement—viz., equality of opportunity—are secured. Following Darwinian theories, Du Bois emphasizes that the future is unwritten and that humans have the potential, but not necessarily the inevitability, to do the writing. For Du Bois, the possibility of African American advancement has some tentative confirmation by evidence, hence the exuberance, I suggest, of his words in the quotation above (i.e., EORP 1909: ¶ 19).
What is the significance of Du Bois's Darwinism for his research/activism? There is no necessary end-point to the possibilities of human development. "Social self-realization" means that we must allow humans to develop as they will. We must continue to research because we will not know the appropriate end-point to stop data collection. Yet because all individuals do not possess the same social environment, as evidenced by numerous and often extensive forms of impediments, then the scope of our activism is clear for Du Bois. Because we do not know how things will turn out, we must promote public policies to end discrimination so as to enhance the equality of opportunity for all individuals, regardless of demographics.
According to Du Bois, social policies informed by evolutionary theorizing can point to a potentially less violent path, one that extends liberal values in order to reform society. However, Du Bois even in early 20th Century does not avoid discussing one type of revolutionary path. In "The Legacy of John Brown" chapter he forcefully highlights the potential consequences if an evolutionary path of securing rights is not followed (JB 1909). Violent acts of rebellion and revolution, like John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, may be necessary if peaceful policies of social reform and racial equality are not implemented (Livinston 2018).
Nevertheless, as the decades of the 20th century pass, Du Bois does not theorize about social change in terms of evolution, as he once put forth in "Evolution" and "Legacy". As with the natural sciences in general, he still supports the science of evolution "properly interpreted". He also repeats earlier critiques of Darwinism that is used to justify oppression (e.g., JBR 1962; see also Yang 2014). (Read the note below on his later expressions of evolution.)
[Note —The Later Du Bois on Darwinism]
Even though Du Bois in later years tends to emphasize more revolutionary changes to society, his views on the importance of Darwinism seem to remain. This is witnessed by a letter to Adam Clayton Powell and by a 1948 speech.
An exchange of letters between Du Bois and Adam Clayton Powell in 1932 includes a few brief comments about Darwin. Having read a text by Powell, he writes that he disagrees with Powell's criticisms of the negative aspects of Darwin:
'I have read your article with the greatest interest. I should criticize adversely only one statement, and that is on page 10-11 about Darwin's "Origin of Species". I do not think that it is historically accurate to say that this book advocates the "survival of the fittest" or the "conservation of favored races". That's doctrine was developed entirely apart from Darwin's book and long before its appearance. The book was seized upon to support the doctrine, when as a matter of fact, it did not at all. What Darwin said about the "survival of the fittest" was simply a scientific statement of the results of competition between living beings. But he did not for a moment mean by "fittest", those who ought to survive. It was simply a statement that as a matter of fact some would survive.
'As an interpretation of unanswerable scientific facts, Darwin and his successors are to my mind, unanswerable, but on the other hand, the philosophy of superior races, etc., built up long before Darwin, is, of course, deserving of all the criticism what you put upon it.' [LACP 1932]
In another example, and rather briefly, Du Bois links evolution and democracy in a 1948 speech entitled "Color and Democracy". Referring to supporters of democracy, he writes:
"Are they in favor of democracy or are they in favor of oligarchy based upon wealth and color, and to a large degree upon sex and religion? These people have got to face the real argument for democracy which is seldom stressed. The argument for democracy bases itself upon much of that very theory of evolution which was misconceived and misinterpreted to uphold the color line.
"We ought to have learned that diversity in itself is a source of wisdom; that difference is a clear way to knowledge; that absolute uniformity is retrogression and that compromise is natural selection. Segregation of persons or ideas is death." [CDSL 1948: 31-32; in the original typescript all text occurs as capital letters; included in this quotation are all of the handwritten corrections made to the text]
Clearly indicated is Du Bois's continuing support for democracy and the important role of science in support of it. With his statement holding that compromise is (like?) natural selection, he seems to stress how compromise in a democratic polity is analogous to how natural selection functions in evolutionary theory. Biologists, however, probably would criticize this understanding of natural selection.
[End of Note .]
All in all, the later Du Bois puts forth critiques, not based on evolutionary principles, but on revolutionary ones. He moves away from liberal-democratic principles that seek justice merely by ensuring that society upholds the equality and freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Instead, he increasingly concentrates on democratically controlling the production processes themselves so as to hinder or else overcome capitalistic exploitation and imperialist aggression. Accordingly, Du Bois's socialism of his earlier years (e.g., "Socialism and The Negro", SANP 1913; Darkwater, DARK 1920) becomes more aligned with Marxism as the 20th Century proceeds (e.g., "The Revelation of St. Orgne the Damned", RSOD 1939; "Jacob and Esau", JAE 1944; "The Pan-African Movement", TPAM 1947). Ultimately, he joins the U.S. Communist Party in 1961. For Du Bois, the repressive structures of what we would call today, in intersectional terms, patriarchal, racialist capitalism will not change in an evolutionary sense. Revolutionary changes are needed (Mullen 2016; Sinitiere 2013).
Du Bois, as is often mentioned, studies with William James at Harvard. He often writes of the influence of his professor (e.g. A68; MEPF 1944: ¶¶ 25,27,75). Later scholars have examined the influence of James on Du Bois; they seek similarities in Du Bois's writings that parallel or call to mind James's thought (ex., Campbell 1992; Kahn 2009; Kloppenberg 2010: 15; P. Taylor 2004; West 1989; Zamir 1995). Others are concerned that studies seeking the intellectual influences on Du Bois diminish his status, and also imply that his thought is derivative of White academics (ex., Curry 2011 & 2014). As the latter scholars argue, it is very important to find the divergences and originality of Du Bois vis-à-vis his White faculty at Harvard and other universities. Indeed, Du Bois himself analyzes racial issues that some like James or George Santayana barely, if at all, discuss, and that others like Josiah Royce study, but in racially problematic ways (Curry 2009; Glaude 2007).
For his part, Du Bois explicitly cites the influence of James on his thinking. In a well recognized passage, he writes in 1956 to Herbert Aptheker:
"I think in general I agree with your conclusions and criticism; but I would express my philosophy more simply. Several times in the past I have started to formulate it, but met such puzzled looks that it remains only partially set down in scraps of manuscript. I gave up the search of "Absolute" Truth; not from doubts of the existence of reality, but because I believe that our limited knowledge and clumsy methods of research made it impossible now completely to apprehend Truth. I nevertheless firmly believed that gradually the human mind and absolute and provable truth would approach each other and like the "Asymtotes [sic] of the Hyperbola" (I learned the phrase in high school and was ever after fascinated by it) would approach each other nearer and nearer and yet never in all eternity meet. I therefore turned to Assumption—scientific Hypothesis. I assumed the existence of Truth, since to assume anything else or not to assume was unthinkable. I assumed that Truth was only partially known but that it was ultimately largely knowable, although perhaps in part forever Unknowable. Science adopted the hypothesis of a Knower and something Known. The Jamesian Pragmatism as I understood it from his lips was not based on the "usefulness" of a hypothesis, as you put it, but on its workable logic if its truth was assumed. Also of necessity I assumed Cause and Change. With these admittedly unprovable assumptions, I proposed to make a scientific study of human action, based on the hypotheses of the reality of such actions, of their causal connections and of their continued occurrence and change because of Law and Chance. I called Sociology the measurement of the element of Chance in Human Action." [LHA 1956: ¶ 5; capitalization in the original.]
Du Bois applies such Jamesian insights, and perhaps teachings from his other professors at the universities of Fisk, Harvard, and Friedrich Wilhelm in ways that exceed his professors' experiences and ideas (A68: Chs.VIII, IX, X). He also briefly cites "Jamesian pragmatism" by name in "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom" (MEPF 1944: ¶ 75).
In light of his scholarly research, how might Du Bois convey his Jamesian pragmatism? He often utilizes it in situations when the evidence is lacking, is uncertain, or is unknowable in principle, but in all cases we still must act in order to advance socially and to avoid "social death" (MEPF 1944). (For a discussion of Du Boisian uncertainty and unknowability, as well as knowledge-about and direct knowledge, visit {}: Du Bois on Nescience: Uncertainty and Unknowability). Consider the following passage from Du Bois's "The Future of the Negro Race in America" (1904):
"From enforced ignorance so great that over 90 per cent. of the coloured people could not read and write at the close of the war, they have brought themselves to the place where the 56 per cent. can read and write. Starting a generation ago, without a cent or the ownership of their own bodies, they have saved property to the value of not less than 300,000,000 dollars, besides supporting themselves; and finally they have begun to evolve among themselves men who know their situation and needs.
"All this does not prove that the future is bright and clear, or that there is no question of race antipathy or negro [sic] capacity; but it is distinctly and emphatically hopeful, and in the light of history and human development it puts the burden of proof rather on those who deny the capabilities of the negro [sic] than on those who assume that they are not essentially different from those of other members of the great human family." [FNRA 1904: ¶¶ 36-37]
This publication and his conclusions will surface in later correspondence between him and a White collaborator, Walter F. Willcox.
Du Bois's Jamesian pragmatism is evident in the passage from "The Future of the Negro Race in America" just quoted. Here I set forth an overall logic of his position derived not only from "The Future" essay, but also from ideas emerging in other (presupposed) works.
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The essential humanity of African Americans is a guiding assumption, such as he refers to in "The Study of the Negro Problems" (SNP 1898), and "The Atlanta Conferences" (ATLC 1904).
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African American agency, in the sense of the capacity to act intentionally, is implicated in the data.
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The research data demonstrate overall African American advances (we might even say progress over time).
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But there is no certainty of future successes.
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The lack of certainty results from the chance dimensions arising from and through human actions: unpredictability, opportunity, and causal contingency (SOCH ca. 1904-05).
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The data also inicate that some areas have witnessed no advances (which his other works over time corroborate).
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Nonetheless, the evidence points to hope for future success;
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The evidence presented also means that those who deny Black capacities to self-development need to provide data that would strengthen their argument (because the data that Du Bois has gathered tends to support Black humanity and agency.)
In short, the workable logic of Jamesian pragmatism is itself manifested in the provisional research results. Any anticipated success or progress implies that hope itself can be cast in terms of hypotheses, which in turn must be tested in and against worldly practices.
Pragmatically inspired research, for Du Bois, calls into question the conventional notion of disincarnated scholarship. Because hypotheses and beliefs must be evaluated by the researcher (or believer) in the world, embodiment is highlighted, I contend, as an important aspect of Du Bois's Jamesian pragmatism. The inescapable embodiment of the researcher becomes all the more clearly delineated for him because he is an African American scholar in a racist society and world. Such embodied scholarship will become explicit in a 1904 challenge to his research conclusions. Du Bois will respond with reference to "intimate soul contact".
What happens if someone approaches the data that Du Bois presents in "The Future" essay (as quoted above), or via other projects, but approaches the data in a non-pragmatic way? This indeed is at issue in an exchange of letters between him and Walter F. Willcox during March 1904. They previously have collaborated on a major project (U.S. Dept. of Commerce & Labor 1904). Willcox writes Du Bois, thanking him for sending the article, "The Future of the Negro Race in America" (1904). However, Willcox disagrees with several points that Du Bois makes in the essay. The point that I will elaborate here refers to Willcox's argument that he is "an agnostic on the subject" of whether the causes of African American "economic conditions" (as he terms them) have arisen from social context or history, or whether they emerge for the innate characteristics or the African Americans themselves. He writes that no data exists that can confirm one factor as more influential than the other (Willcox 1904). That is to say, Willcox criticizes Du Bois's assertion in the essay that African Americans can continue to socially advance into the future, despite socially repressive conditions, because (in Du Bois's words) "they are not essentially different from those of other members of the great human family." (FNRA 1904: ¶ 37) In short, Willcox criticizes Du Bois's pragmatically-inflected idea of hope for continued African American progress.
Du Bois's reply indicates that, as far as he is concerned, there is enough information to argue that social causes are primarily operative, and not innate causes. Du Bois writes:
"The fundamental difficulty in your position is that you are trying to spin a solution of the Negro problem out of the inside of your office. It can never be done. You have simply no adequate conception the Negro problem in the South & of Negro character & capacity. When you have sat as I have ten years in intimate soul contact with all kinds & conditions of black men you will be less agnostic. I have my prejudices but they are backed by knowledge if not supported. How on earth any fair-minded student of the situation could have stood sponsor for a book like Tillinghast's & actually praised it is simply beyond my comprehension. If you insist on writing about & pronouncing judgment on this problem why not study it? Not from a car-window & associated press despatches [sic] as in your pamphlet on crime but get down here & really study it at first hand. Is it a sufficient answer to a problem to say the data are not sufficient when they lie all about us? There is enough easily obtainable data to take you off the fence if you will study it first hand & not thro' [sic] prejudiced eyes?—my eyes, or those of others." [LWWM 1904; emphasis added]
Du Bois is careful to differentiate his opinions and prejudices in favor of a positive view of African Americans, on the one hand, from the data that would confirm such a claim, on the other. Regardless, he argues that he is justified to argue that African Americans in general can socially advance, or to use the language of "Future", they can be deemed as fit as any race.
Du Bois's "intimate soul contact" provides him with what can be called a pragmatic basis for further studies. Such a pragmatic basis allows him to act on the assumption of Africana humanity and to conduct research to discover if socio-economic success actually is occurring. In short, Du Bois's personal experience that Blacks are becoming more socially successful within a social context of repression and segregation permits him to engage in further and ongoing research. Research will not be foreclosed: his first-person experiences can be explored and confirmed—or not— against data gathered in the world.
[Note —The Du Bois–Willcox Correspondence]
The Credo repository housed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Library has Du Bois's handwritten reply placed directly at the end of Willcox's letter (LWWM 1904). After searching, there does not seem to be a typewritten version among the Credo collection of Du Bois materials. Nevertheless, his reply is sent and received by Willcox, as evidenced by an exchange of letters between Willcox and Alfred Holt Stone. In their letters they directly comment on, and criticize, Du Bois's response to Willcox (Hollandsworth 2008: pp.142-144).
For Du Bois, what we cannot know at all or with certainty is as important as what we can know. This is Du Bois's idea of nescience, as I refer to it, and it has consequences for how to conduct research and how to engage in politics. These are bold statements in a project documenting his research achievements and insights. Nonetheless, Du Bois discusses this in multiple works spanning his life time. Nowadays, we might speak of probabilities, a point Du Bois recognizes, but in his era social laws typically were predictable and were indicative of deterministic forces acting on humans whether they were aware of it or not (as discussed within this Appendix).
Du Bois's Ideas on Uncertainty: Our understanding of humanity can entail uncertain knowledge, or unrecoverable information, or even be unknowable in principle, according to Du Bois. Despite his strong assertions about seeking knowledge he was also aware that knowledge could be uncertain, even if it were also the best information so far available and that some things might or could not be known at all in principle. In short, uncertainty involves evidence that is available to the researcher (as opposed to what is not known), but the evidence does not yield highly predictable outcomes or does not provide the guide that we may want for our actions (or that we may want as justifications for our actions).
For Du Bois, as he can be interpreted, the uncertainty of knowledge about humans is based on the conjunction of human agency, and its associated free will, with the geo-historical contingency (my term) of contextual factors. Du Bois considers that human agency and free will are "a something Incalculable", a point that he elaborates upon in "Sociology Hesitant", a draft manuscript unpublished in his lifetime. Therein he writes:
"For the Great Assumption of real life is that in the deeds of men there lies along with rule and rhythm—along with physical law and biologic habit, a something Incalculable." [Sociology Hesitant" (SOCH), unpublished typescript, ca. 1904-1905: ¶ 9; capitalization in the original]
In "Sociology Hesitant" he sets forth two types of human behavior: what he calls "primary rhythms" and "secondary rhythms". "Primary rhythms" are predictable human actions, such as birth and death rates. They are expressed via statistics, and as such, they involve regular patterns of human behavior from which we can derive generalizations. "Secondary rhythms" are not predictable in the same way because they originate from the human capacity for free will and intentional action, as Du Bois argues elsewhere in "Sociology Hesitant". Secondary rhythms emphasize the particular and potentially unrepeatable behaviors of any given individual. He writes in "Sociology Hesitant":
"That there are limits is shown by the rhythm in birth and death rates and the distribution by sex; it is found further in human customs and laws, the forms of government, the laws of trade, and even in charity and ethics. As, however, we rise in the realm of conduct, we note a primary and a secondary rhythm. A primary rhythm depending, as we have indicated, on physical forces and physical law; but within this appears again and again a secondary rhythm which, while presenting nearly the same uniformity as the first, differs from it in its more or less sudden rise at a given tune, in accordance with prearranged plan and prediction and in being liable to stoppage and change according to similar plan. An example of primary uniformity is the death rate; of secondary uniformity, the operation of a woman's club; to confound the two sorts of human uniformity is fatal to clear thinking; to explain them we must assume Law and Chance working in conjunction—Chance being the scientific side of inexplicable Will." [SOCH ca.1904-5: ¶ 27; capitalization in the original]
Du Bois does not explain in "Sociology Hesitant" why secondary rhythms illustrate both uniformity and "inexplicable Will".
The geo-historical contingency of contextual factors co-exists with human agency and free will. In "Evolution of the Race Problem" Du Bois wrote:
"It is, to be sure, puzzling to know why the Soudan [sic] should linger a thousand years in culture behind the valley of the Seine, but it is no more puzzling than the fact that the valley of the Thames was miserably backward as compared with the banks of the Tiber. Climate, human contact, facilities of communication, and what we call accident have played great part in the rise of culture among nations: to ignore these and to assert dogmatically that the present distribution of culture is a fair index of the distribution of human ability and desert is to make an assertion for which there is not the slightest scientific warrant." [EORP 1909: ¶ 18]
Multiple factors account for human development, not only or not necessarily genetic factors. Du Bois argues that there is some degree of uncertainty as to how humans develop. Consequently, research cannot end too soon—indeed, he implies that it is unscientific to end the research and that the research is and will (always? his critics might ask) be on-going.
[Note —Aeschylus and Shakespeare in Souls]
The Souls of Black Folk, recognized for the concept of double consciousness, also presents another version of Du Bois's idea of what I have called the geo-historical contingency of human development. In Souls Du Bois writes:
'The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving. Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men. A thousand years ago such an assumption, easily possible, would have made it difficult for the Teuton to prove his right to life. Two thousand years ago such dogmatism, readily welcome, would have scouted the idea of blond races ever leading civilization. So wofully [sic] unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of "swift" and "slow" in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science. Why should Aeschylus have sung two thousand years before Shakespeare was born? Why has civilization flourished in Europe, and flickered, flamed, and died in Africa? So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?' [SBF 1903: Ch. XIV]
We can make several comments on the passage here:
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The historical record does not mandate a necessary end-point of human development by which to evaluate their accomplishments.
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Common with humanities research, the literary work of Aeschylus is not deemed necessarily inferior to Shakespeare because it appears hundreds of years earlier that the Bard of Avon.
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Regarding Du Bois's comment in 1903 that civilization has "flickered, flamed, and died in Africa", we can observe the following epiphany. He publishes Souls before the anthropologist Franz Boas delivers the Commencement address in 1906 at Atlanta University. Boas opens his eyes to the civilizational achievements, as Du Bois writes in Black Folk Then and Now (BFTN 1939). Here is how he describes his "awakening" as a result of Boas' speech:
"Few today are interested in Negro history because they feel the matter already settled: the Negro has no history.
"This dictum seems neither reasonable nor probable. I remember my own rather sudden awakening from the paralysis of this judgment taught me in high school and in two of the world's great universities. Franz Boas came to Atlanta University where I was teaching history in 1906 and said to a graduating class: You need not be ashamed of your African past; and then he recounted the history of the black kingdoms south of the Sahara for a thousand years. I was too astonished to speak. All of this I had never heard and I came then and afterwards to realize how the silence and neglect of science can let truth utterly disappear or even be unconsciously distorted." [BFTN 1939]
Many among Du Bois's contemporaries disagree with the idea of civilizations in Africa and with the argument that the on-going potential of human development requires no current point of evaluation of the achievements of different races. For example, William Benjamin Smith in his White supremacist book, The Color Line: A Belief in Behalf of the Unborn, argues that an inner spiritual quality of Europeans characterizes their (supposedly) high level of civilizational attainments and that peoples more than one hundred generation behind in development are not worthy of study. Also, and very common to the supremacism then and now, he does not deem that cultures outside of Europe have anything that compares favorably with European civilization (W.B. Smith 1906: pp.34, 120).
[End of Note .]
In Du Bois's works we can delineate several types of uncertainty, as I have characterized and named them.
a.
Normative Uncertainty of Values and Ideals: Values and ideals cannot be empirically validated. Ought does not derive from Is. We cannot scientifically prove or disprove that good deeds will triumph, that the world is becoming better, or that there is value in love for family and neighbors—as Du Bois wrote in "The Church and Religion" (TCAR 1933: ¶¶ 2-3). Moreover, the behaviors that we observe in nature and society may not be the best behaviors that our ethical systems hold as the ideals that we should accept and practice.
b.
Naturalistic Uncertainty: Evolutionary Possibilities are expressed by Du Bois in "The Evolution of the Race Problem":
"What the age of Darwin has done is to add to the eighteenth century idea of individual worth the complementary idea of physical immortality of the human race. And this, far from annulling or contracting the idea of human freedom, rather emphasizes its necessity and eternal possibility—the boundlessness and endlessness of possible human achievement. Freedom has come to mean not individual caprice or aberration but social self-realization in an endless chain of selves, and freedom for such development is not the denial but the central assertion of the revolutionary theory. So, too, the doctrine of human equality passes through the fire of scientific inquiry not obliterated but transfigured; not equality of present attainment but equality of opportunity for unbounded future attainment is the rightful demand of mankind." [EORP 1909: ¶ 19]
For more details see {}: Du Bois's Darwinism.
c.
Naturalistic Uncertainty: Quantum Indeterminacy is located in a speech by Aba Aziz, a fictional character in Du Bois's later novel, Worlds of Color.
"We admit that clear knowledge of Things is the best way to understanding. Yet an embarrassing question may here be asked: What do we really know of the Things we think about if indeed there are any real Things beyond our thought of them? Common sense comes to support Science and says, let us act as though this outer world really exists and proceed to know and measure it. On this hypothesis we build up a world of mass and energy which moves in Time and Space and shows astonishing regularities. Indeed, last century we had reached the place where we believed we were on the track of the Universal Laws of action among Things and closing in on analogous laws governing all life, vegetable, animal and human. Then in our day came a halting.
"This moving mass, at one end infinitely small and at the other a vast reach of stars, with earth between, when interrogated not only refused to exhibit the same regularities, but differed widely and disturbingly. They contradicted each other so that at least among the atoms we could speak only of Probability and even of sheer Chance which the pre-scientific students had rather infelicitously called Free Will. Time and Space seemed to be but aspects of one Thing and the universe could only be explained scientifically if we mathematically assumed that we had measured what was at present Unmeasurable unless and until we know what is now apparently Unknowable.
"All this the oldest, exact scientist resented, the Priest ridiculed, but the mathematician proved true by splitting and fusing atoms; while bending rays of light and blending motion and mass. All of which challenges the present day student. In this complex the present conference, as I understand, takes its place. It will, so far as it can, measure human conduct in a distinct and controlled area and there either discover Law or delimit the boundaries of Chance." [BFWC 1961: p.89; capitalization in the original]
As with evolutionary theorizing, Du Bois in Aziz's speech connects science's inquiry into the nature of things, including humans as objects of study, with the humanities's focus on the unique dimensions of human agency, such as free will. Also note that in the speech Du Bois reiterates his oft-repeated definition of Sociology as "the Science that seeks the limits of Chance in human conduct" (SOCH ca.1904-5).
Uncertainty, despite the best efforts of scholars, is an inescapable part of the quest for knowledge. Du Bois accepts that and recognizes its positive consequences.
Du Bois's types of uncertainty yield various consequences for research and activism. As regards normative uncertainty, we have faith and ideals to guide us in our social duty even if we do not have the knowledge. What I am calling the naturalistic forms of uncertainty also have consequences: The natural sciences and the human sciences are analogous with regard to, on the one hand, the incalculable dimensions of subatomic particles and evolutionary "boundlessness", and on the other hand, the endless possibilities of potentially explainable, but not fully predictable human actions. Seemingly, Du Bois implies that the limits on knowledge originating in and delineated by chance and contingency posit a realm of human agency and free will.
Du Bois's Ideas on Unknowability: The concept of the unknowable—what cannot be known in principle—is a recurring theme in Du Bois's works across time. Herein I will detail what can be called historical unknowability and two basic types of ontological unknowability: the lack of one's direct knowledge of others's experiences and knowledge, as well as the unknowability of "ultimate reality". Throughout, I will also cover the consequences for activism of the several types of Du Boisian unknowability.
The boundaries of historically based research are delineated by evidence. We know the past via gathering the evidence from written and material sources and artifacts, and from oral traditions and histories based on personal experiences. Without those sources, Du Bois implies, historical research is not possible. Consequently, our knowledge of the past will be neither complete nor comprehensive. In addition, and unfortunately, we will not know specifically what has been lost, and we will not know what some actors did, or what other actors thought.
Du Bois approaches the unknowable aspects of historical research in several ways. In 1904 he writes of seeking historical generalities. With no extant data sources, we can only approximate details. Du Bois discusses this in "The Development of a People":
"I want then to mention briefly the steps which groups of men have usually taken in their forward struggling, and to ask which of these steps the Negroes of the United States have taken and how far they have gone. In such comparisons we cannot, unfortunately, have the aid of exact statistics, for actual measurement of social phenomena is peculiar to the Nineteenth century—that is, to an age when the culture Nations were full-grown, and we can only roughly indicate conditions in the days of their youth. A certain youth and childhood is common to all men in their mingled striving. Everywhere, glancing across the seas of human history, we note it." [TDOP 1904: ¶ 10]
In the 1950s he revisits the idea of historical unknowability. In "Postscript" to The Ordeal of Mansart Du Bois writes of the limits of historical sources:
"It may well be asked, and as one who has done some historical research I join in the asking, why should one tamper with history at all in order to write truth? The answer of course is Never, if exact truth can otherwise be ascertained. But every historian is painfully aware how little the scientist today can know accurately of the past; how dependence on documents and memory leaves us all with the tale of the past half told or less. The temptation then comes to pretend we know far more than we do and to set down as accurate history that which is not demonstrably true. To me it seems wiser and fairer to interpret historical truth by the use of creative imagination, provided the method is acknowledged and clear.
"When in this world we seek the truth about what men have thought and felt and done, we face insuperable difficulties. We seldom can see enough of human action at first hand to interpret it properly. We can never know current personal thought and emotion with sufficient understanding rightly to weigh its cause and effect. After action and feeling and reflection are long past, then from writing and memory we may secure some picture of the total truth, but it will be sorely imperfect, with much omitted, much forgotten, much distorted." [PSOM 1957: ¶¶ 2-3]
For Du Bois, historical unknowability has practical consequences for research and activism. One can continue to seek primary sources that document the lives and times of the people and events. But in lieu of new evidence, activism will require the use of literary imagination. As he writes in the "Postscript" to The Ordeal of Mansart: "This is the eternal paradox of history. There is but one way to meet this clouding of facts and that is by the use of imagination where documented material and personal experience are lacking." (PSOM 1957: ¶¶ 4-8). For the rest of the text to the "Postscript" see {} among the primary sources contained in this [demonstration] project. For his part, Du Bois wrote several books of "historical fiction", including The Quest of the Silver Fleece (QSF 1911), Dark Princess (DRKP 1928), and the Black Flame trilogy (including BFOM 1957, BFMB 1959, and BFWC 1961). He also writes numerous shorter works of fiction, including poems, short stories, and parables (KCW [1985]).
In addition to problems with recovering historical evidence, Du Bois also spells out a type of unknowability that at its core addresses "being" itself, both human beings and the ultimate structure of being. There is no direct knowledge of others' experiences and wisdom. We cannot experientially know another's thoughts or feelings. We can only know about others' experiences via using scientific methods and techniques. For example, we can interview another and seek greater understanding of what that person says she has experienced or what she knows. Nonetheless, for Du Bois, because we have no direct knowledge of the joys and sufferings of others, we do not have knowledge per se, but rather only resemblances and guesses. From his "The Individual and Social Conscience":
"Here in this my neighbor stand things I do not know, experiences I have never felt, depths whose darkness is beyond me, and heights hidden by the clouds; or, perhaps, rather, differences in ways of thinking, and dreaming, and feeling which I guess at rather than know; strange twistings of soul that curve between the grotesque and the awful." [IASC 1905: ¶ 3]
Du Bois reiterates this a few years later in the chapter "Of the Ruling of Men" within Darkwater. There he writes about monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies in relation to a fundamental component of governing:
"The best and most effective aristocracy, like the best monarchy, suffered from lack of knowledge. The rulers did not know or understand the needs of the people and they could not find out, for in the last analysis only the man himself, however humble, knows his own condition. He may not know how to remedy it, he may not realize just what is the matter; but he knows when something hurts and he alone knows how that hurt feels. Or if sunk below feeling or comprehension or complaint, he does not even know that he is hurt, God help his country, for it not only lacks knowledge, but has destroyed the sources of knowledge. [OROM 1920: ¶ 25]
This type of ontological unknowability holds significant consequence for activism, especially for politics: the "excluded wisdom" of the marginalized needs to be included in policymaking by means of the franchise. Accordingly, the vote needs to be secured and even should be extended to women (OROM 1920: ¶¶ 26-30).
[Note —"Excluded Wisdom" Is Required for Governing]
The idea of "excluded wisdom" is the most commonly studied example of what I am calling Du Boisian unknowability. Later scholar typically study the idea of "excluded wisdom" in relation to democracy: for example, Balfour 2011; Bromell 2011 and 2013; Gooding-Williams 2009; Lunt 2011; McBride 2004; and Monteiro 2008. The idea is contained with "Of the Ruling of Men" which he publishes as a chapter in Darkwater.
[par.26] So soon as a nation discovers that it holds in the heads and hearts of its individual citizens the vast mine of knowledge, out of which it may build a just government, then more and more it calls those citizens to select their rulers and to judge the justice of their acts.
[par.27] Even here, however, the temptation is to ask only for the wisdom of citizens of a certain grade or those of recognized worth. Continually some classes are tacitly or expressly excluded. Thus women have been excluded from modern democracy because of the persistent theory of female subjection and because it was argued that their husbands or other male folks would look to their interests. Now, manifestly, most husbands, fathers, and brothers will, so far as they know how or as they realize women's needs, look after them. But remember the foundation of the argument,—that in the last analysis only the sufferer knows his sufferings and that no state can be strong which excludes from its expressed wisdom the knowledge possessed by mothers, wives, and daughters. We have but to view the unsatisfactory relations of the sexes the world over and the problem of children to realize how desperately we need this excluded wisdom.
[par.28] The same arguments apply to other excluded groups: if a race, like the Negro race, is excluded, then so far as that race is a part of the economic and social organization of the land, the feeling and the experience of that race are absolutely necessary to the realization of the broadest justice for all citizens. Or if the "submerged tenth" be excluded, then again, there is lost from the world an experience of untold value, and they must be raised rapidly to a place where they can speak for themselves. In the same way and for the same reason children must be educated, insanity prevented, and only those put under the guardianship of others who can in no way be trained to speak for themselves.
[par.29] The real argument for democracy is, then, that in the people we have the source of that endless life and unbounded wisdom which the rulers of men must have. A given people today may not be intelligent, but through a democratic government that recognizes, not only the worth of the individual to himself, but the worth of his feelings and experiences to all, they can educate, not only the individual unit, but generation after generation, until they accumulate vast stores of wisdom. Democracy alone is the method of showing the whole experience of the race for the benefit of the future and if democracy tries to exclude women or Negroes or the poor or any class because of innate characteristics which do not interfere with intelligence, then that democracy cripples itself and belies its name.
[par.30] From this point of view we can easily see the weakness and strength of current criticism of extension of the ballot. It is the business of a modern government to see to it, first, that the number of ignorant within its bounds is reduced to the very smallest number. Again, it is the duty of every such government to extend as quickly as possible the number of persons of mature age who can vote. Such possible voters must be regarded, not as sharers of a limited treasure, but as sources of new national wisdom and strength. [OROM 1920]
Du Boisian "excluded wisdom" also points him towards the democratic control over industrial decisions. "Of the Ruling of Men", contained within the Darkwater of 1920, offers some ingress into his later, more explicitly Marxist works.
[End of Note .]
Du Bois also stipulates that "Ultimate Reality"—the cosmic order and the meaning of life—is unknowable. Scientific methods cannot be used to produce knowledge about ultimate reality and its meaning. In his "Immortality" piece Du Bois writes that an afterlife and "the real essence of life" cannot be proven or disproven, confirmed or disconfirmed:
"My thought on personal immortality is easily explained. I do not know. I do not see how any one could know. Our whole basis of knowledge is so relative and contingent that when we get to argue concerning ultimate reality and the real essence of life and the past and the future, we seem to be talking without real data and getting nowhere. I have every respect for people who believe in the future life, but I cannot accept their belief or their wish as knowledge. Equally, I am not impressed by those who deny the possibility of future life. I have no knowledge of the possibilities of this universe and I know of no one who has." [IMMT 1935]
Although scientific research is accordingly limited, activism is not. Indeed, religious faith is an important element of the pursuit of justice. Du Bois links faith and science, albeit with particular caveats, in his book, Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace:
[. . .] "No light of faith, no matter how kindly and beneficent, can in a world of reason guide human beliefs to truth unless it is continually tested by pragmatic fact.
"On the other hand, I must fairly acknowledge that the majority of the best and earnest people of this world are today organized in religious groups, and that without the co-operation of the richness of their emotional experience, and the unselfishness of their aims, science stands helpless before crude fact and selfish endeavor." [CDCP 1945: p.137]
This appendix has built upon my previous research on Du Bois's ideas of unknowability (ex., R.W. Williams 2014a, 2014b, 2018). I have delineated more types of unknowability in a 2016 conference presentation (R.W. Williams 2016).
Biographical Sketch
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) is known today—and has been known from the late 19th Century—for both his research and activism. We can call him a public intellectual. He challenges White supremacism in its varied forms, whether at home or abroad. Indeed, resolutely and powerfully, Du Bois promotes civil rights and equality for oppressed peoples across the near and far expanses of the world. His strategies vary across his life; many contemporary and later sources document the range of his efforts. He presents his scholarly research and views via publishing in popular and academic presses, as well as via public speaking in popular, governmental, and scholarly venues. Many have deemed Du Bois controversial because of his radical views and activism on race and indeed class.
Du Bois's dissertation at Harvard University centers on the end to the slave trade from Africa to the U.S.A. (SAST 1896). He becomes director of the Atlanta University conferences in 1897 and begins what he hopes would be an extended series of social-scientific studies documenting the progress (or stasis or regress) of African Americans. In 1903 he publishes what today is still his most widely recognized work, The Souls of Black Folk (SBF 1903). Accordingly, in these and other early works, he energetically promotes the view that social research and trenchant analysis can inform and motivate public policies in the U.S.A. and elsewhere in ways that will challenge discrimination in its many forms, whether Jim Crow in America or colonial domination elsewhere. His is thus an activist goal: to correct the conditions that hinder social progress and that deny freedom as well as political and economic equality to Blacks and other persons of color. The early 1900s are decades away from Du Bois's later activities and writings that still trouble many, critics and even friends. His strong and abiding activism for political solutions and electoral correctives to racial injustice has long proven controversial, as does his developing perspectives on Black economic nationalism and Marxism. That he becomes a member of the Communist Party in the early 1960s and leaves the U.S.A. to live in Ghana, where he dies in 1963, adds further to the list of his actions often considered provocative.
Many acknowledge Du Bois in his day for his research and essays, although the commentators' language, whether positive, negative, or mixed, can sound condescending at times. Since the latter decades of the 20th century Du Bois's contributions to many academic disciplines have been studied in the fields of sociology, history, and political science. Moreover, the multi-disciplinary areas of urban studies, religious studies, and Black and Africana studies recognize the value of Du Bois's works. For example, see the discussions in Balfour 2011; Gregg 1998; Gabbidon 1999; Marable 1986; Rabaka 2008; Warren 2011; E. Wright 2002; and Zuckerman 2002.
Print Resources on Du Bois's Life and Works
Du Bois's thoughts and deeds have been studied over the course of his long life. A few of such resources to consider include the following:
• Numerous contemporary sources convey the range of Du Bois's life, activities, and publications. For example, see "DU BOIS. William Edward Burghardt" 1910; R. Johnson 1904; and F. Mather 1915.
• Later biographies on Du Bois offer further details: see Horne 2009; D.L. Lewis 1993 and 2000; Marable 1986; and Mullen 2016.
• Bibliographies from Aptheker 1973 and from Partington 1979a and 1979b list Du Bois's many publications.
• A useful chronology of Du Bois's life and work can be found in the collection of Du Bois's works that Nathan Huggins edited (Huggins 1986). For details on particular facets of Du Bois's later life, also see Bass 2012 and Balaji 2007.
• Aptheker 1989 provides a range of reviews of Du Bois's publications by contemporaries. In addition, my academic website on Du Bois, located at < www.webdubois.org >, offers contemporary reviews for particular DuBoisian works.
Online Resources on Du Bois's Life and Works
The Credo repository contains numerous manuscripts of published and unpublished texts written by Du Bois. It is housed at the Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It is a major collection of Du Bois's papers. The Credo repository also 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. 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.
The W. E. B. Dubois Collection at Yale University is archived in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The collection (JWJ MSS 8) contains correspondence and drafts of various works. In the words of the Beinecke Library staff: the collection "contains items presented to the James Weldon Johnson Collection by Mr. DuBois, by way of Carl Van Vechten, with additional items from other persons". There is an online search feature which allows users to find Du Bois materials.
Active searches of the Internet will yield numerous primary materials by Du Bois and secondary sources about him. In addition, I provides links to such sources at my academic website on Du Bois, appropriately named < www.webdubois.org >.
Reading Paths through the Anthology
The texts included in the anthology may be accessed by readers according to several paths. In this document I suggest three possible courses: the chronological path, the research/activism path, and the social issues path. [A Note to the Editorial Board: Observe that many of Du Bois's works were published after 1923 and are not likely to be in the public domain. As a consequence, excerpts might be used within the editorial introduction and/or within the collection of works itself. In the case of public domain books, it will be advisable to publish only pertinent excerpts.]
Path 1. The Chronological Path
Du Bois's works collected in the anthology can be read in terms of a time line that lists each work chronologically by date of publication (or creation if unpublished and the composition date is known). The bibliography of Du Bois's works is located at the end of this document presents the primary sources in chronological order.
Path 2. The Research/Activism Path
Du Bois's works can also be read as a sequence set forth in this Introduction. Several questions, which were addressed in the editor's introduction above, can guide the reader along the research/activism path through the texts contained in the anthology.
q1.
How does Du Bois justify what we would call today engaged scholarship? Engaged scholarship involves the use of research findings to inform social activism and political policies. Du Bois understood the relationship between scholarship and its socio-political uses in terms of what I will conceptualize as his research/activism framework.
q2.
How does social research—with its associated limitations, as conveyed by Du Bois—guide social and political activism for justice? Du Bois across his life advocated the use of social research, but he was aware of its weaknesses. Such weaknesses prompted him from 1910 onwards to emphasize activism in the form of positive propaganda, as he labeled it.
q3.
What types of activism does Du Bois advocate based on his understanding of social research and its limitations? Du Bois supported a variety of tactics and activities, including scholarly research directed towards social problems and to help the socially oppressed; movements to secure voting and political participation; the cultural activism of artists and their works; and interracial alliances to promote social and political justice.
Such thematic questions address the abiding problems of injustice in the 21st Century, a point that makes a discussion of research/activism still relevant today.
In the various paths sketched below, I have added thematic labels that categorize groups of works. In addition, some sources appear more than once, because of their importance for a particular theme or category.
Path 2.1. Social research principles and research questions
• 1898. "The Study of the Negro Problems."
• 1903. "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University."
• 1909. "Evolution of the Race Problem."
• Excerpts: 1944. "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom."
• N.D. "A Science of Sociology." [Undated typescript.]
Path 2.2. Research methods (longitudinal and case studies)
• 1898-1916. [Du Bois as Editor or Co-editor.] Atlanta University Publications, various years.
• 1898. "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: a Social Study."
• 1899. "The Negro in the Black Belt: Some Social Sketches."
• 1899. The Philadelphia Negro.
Path 2.3. Theoretical dimensions
• 1898. "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: a Social Study." [Class structure within the African American community in Farmville; perspectival dimensions to research questions.]
• 1904. "The Development of a People."
• Ca. 1904-1905. "Sociology Hesitant." [Unpublished manuscript. Behavioral regularities in addition to chance: individual free will as well as geo-historical contingency.]
Path 2.4. Examples of research
• 1896. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America. [Excerpts.]
• 1898. "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: a Social Study."
• 1898-1916. [Du Bois as editor or co-editor.] Atlanta University Publications, various years.
• 1901. "The Black North: A Social Study." Five-part series in the New York Times.
• 1901. "Results of the Ten Tuskegee Conferences."
• 1935. Black Reconstruction in America. [Excerpts.]
Path 2.5. Du Bois's critiques of others's research
• 1897. Review of "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. By Frederick L. Hoffman, F.S.S."
• Excerpts: Hoffman, Frederick. 1896. Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro.
• 1903. Review of "Joseph A. Tillinghast's The Negro in Africa and America."
• Excerpts: Tillinghast, Joseph. 1902. The Negro in Africa and America.
• 1918. "Review of American Negro Slavery . . . by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips."
Path 2.6. Du Bois's critique of extant social research
• 1904. "The Souls of Black Folk." [Article: The Independent.]
• Excerpts: 1944. "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom."
Path 2.7. An alternate methodology to justify activism
• 1905. "The Individual and Social Conscience."
Path 2.8. Positive propaganda
• Excerpts: 1926. "Criteria of Negro Art."
• Excerpts and link: 1960. "Oral History Interview of W.E.B. Du Bois by William Ingersoll."
• Excerpts and link: 1961. "W.E.B. DuBois: A Recorded Autobiography". Interviewer Moses Asch.
Path 2.9. The role of values in social justice
• Excerpts and link: 1889. "The Renaissance of Ethics"
• 1905. "The Negro Ideals of Life."
• Excerpts: 1944. "Jacob and Esau."
Path 2.10. The role of art and literature in social justice
• 1911. Preface, The Quest of the Silver Fleece.
• 1920. "Of Beauty and Death." [Chapter IX in Darkwater.]
• Excerpts: 1926. "Criteria of Negro Art."
Path 2.11. Examples of Du Bois's activism (as a public intellectual)
• 1901. Du Bois Testimony before the U.S. Industrial Commission (1901).
• 1906. "Address to the Country." [1906 Speech at the second meeting of the Niagara Movement, Harpers Ferry.]
• 1909. "National Committee on the Negro." [Heralds the creation of the NAACP.]
• 1915. Campaign against "The Birth of a Nation" film as published in The Crisis.
• 1923. "The Superior Race (An Essay)."
• [Other examples also may be included.]
Path 3. The Social and Political Issues Route
A third path through Du Bois's primary sources concentrates on his analysis of, and comments on, the contemporary issues of his era. Many of these primary sources are cited to illustrate Du Bois's role as a public intellectual and also the application of his research projects to social problems. Such issues are not altogether resolved in the 21st Century and make Du Bois's thought as pertinent now as it was in his lifetime. The following list sets forth one way to categorize the works contained within the [proposed] anthology. Observe also that some sources will appear more than once, because of their relevance for more than one theme or issue.
Path 3.1. Disfranchisement, Democracy, and Governance
• Ca. 1912. "Disfranchisement" [Pamphlet.]
• 1912. "Democracy and the Negro."
• 1920. "Of the Ruling of Men." Ch. VI in Darkwater.
• Excerpt: 1930. "The Negro Citizen."
Path 3.2. Criminal Justice
• 1901. "The Spawn of Slavery: The Convict Lease System in the South."
• Excerpt: 1904. Editor, Notes on Negro Crime Particularly in Georgia. Atlanta University Publication No. 9.
Path 3.3. Education
• Excerpt: 1910. The College-bred Negro American. Atlanta University Publication No. 15.
• Excerpt: 1935. "Does the Negro Need Separate Schools."
Path 3.5. Women
• 1920. "The Damnation of Women." [Chapter VII in Darkwater.]
• Excerpt: 1911. The Quest of the Silver Fleece.
• 1915. "Woman Suffrage." [The Crisis editorial.]
Path 3.6. War
• 1915. "The African Roots of War."
• 1917-1918. Editorials, The Crisis.
Path 3.7. Leadership
• 1903. The Souls of Black Folk. [Du Bois's critique of Booker T. Washington.]
• 1903. "The Talented Tenth."
• 1904. "The Development of a People."
Path 3.8. The Status and Progress of African Americans
• Excerpts: 1896-1916. Various Atlanta University Publications.
• 1900. "The American Negro at Paris".
• 1912. "The Upbuilding of Black Durham."
Path 3.9. White supremacy
• 1910. "The Souls of White Folk."
• 1920. "The Souls of White Folk." Ch. II in Darkwater.
Path 3.10. Discrimination (e.g., jobs, housing, segregation, etc.)
• Excerpts: 1899. The Philadelphia Negro.
• 1911. The Social Evolution of the Black South.
Path 3.11. Economics, poverty, and capitalism
• Excerpts: 1899. The Philadelphia Negro.
• 1908. "Is Race Separation Practicable?"
• 1912. "The Rural South."
• Excerpt: 1944. "Jacob and Esau."
• Excerpt: 1953. "Negroes and the Crisis of Capitalism in the United States."
Path 3.12. Public Health
• 1899. The Philadelphia Negro [Excerpts.]
• 1906. Atlanta University Study 11: The Health & Physique of the American Negro. [Excerpts.]
Primary Sources
Each source contained in the anthology will present, not only the text itself, but also information arranged according to the following template.
• Original Publication
• Historical Context
• Text's Significance for Du Bois
• Text's Importance for Research/Activism
• Editorial Notes
• The Text, along with annotations of persons, institutions, events, issues, practices, and ideas, including cross-references to items mentioned but not cited or detailed in the text itself.
• Suggested Resources pertaining to the text (print and/or online)
I have added paragraphs numbers to each source as a way to facilitate referencing it.
1."The Twelfth Census and the Negro Problems" (1900)
•Original Publication: DuBois, W.E. Burghardt. 1900. "The Twelfth Census and the Negro Problems." The Southern Workman, 29:5 (May): 305-309.
•Historical Context: Contemporaries including Du Bois consider the Twelfth Census as an important resource for the study of population in the USA. This is evident in documents at the time. For example, the Third Hampton Negro Conference convenes during 19-21 July 1899 and its proceedings are published (via Hathi Trust: start page). Du Bois (along with Kelly Miller and others) participate on The Committee on Resolutions and he signs the "Resolutions of the Third Hampton Negro Conference," among which is included this statement:
7. TWELFTH CENSUS
We think it highly important that the managers of the Twelfth Census should make at their earliest opportunity such special studies of the American Negro as will furnish the most accurate general data as to his social condition. [p.9]
Also at that same conference, a discussion follows the delivery of the "Report of the Committee on Statistics" by J.W. Cromwell (p.31). It is recorded that Kelly Miller suggests that the twelfth decennial Census collect information on African Americans that allow for cross-racial and cross-national comparisons (at pp.35-36).
•Text's Significance for Du Bois: Du Bois heralds the need to orient the next decennial census to study African Americans. In a book review of Frederick L. Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro he says as much:
To sum up briefly, the value of Mr. Hoffman's work lies in the collection and emphasis of a number of interesting and valuable data in regard to the American Negro. Most of the conclusions drawn from these facts are, however, of doubtful value, on account of the character of the material, the extent of the field, and the unscientific use of the statistical method. The book emphasizes the need of a Department of Negro Statistics in 1900, and of careful monographic study of the Negro in limited localities and from particular points of view." [RTTR 1897: ¶ 24]
•Text's Importance for Research/Activism: We witness another example of Du Bois entering the national dialog on matters of racial policy and the importance of research to address racial concerns. He makes his case in periodicals like The Southern Workman, which Hampton Institute publishes, and in organizational periodicals. He also interacts directly with government agencies via their research publications and in government committees.
•Editorial Notes:en1. The drop-capital letter that started the first word of the essay has been removed.
en2. Interestingly, Du Bois does not mention his work with the yearly Atlanta University conferences.
en3. Du Bois sometimes capitalizes proper nouns not conventionally capitalized (ex., in ¶¶ 4 and 14).
THE Spanish war and its various sequels have gravely increased some of our difficulties in dealing with the Negro problems. There has come a significant change in public opinion—a growing indifference to human suffering, a practical surrender of the doctrine of equality, of citizenship, and a new impetus to the cold commercial aspect of racial intercourse; all this means increased difficulty in stirring the heart of the nation to such great reformatory movements as the proper solution of the Negro problems demands. Under such circumstances any significant disagreement among the friends of reform, and especially any wide-spread and acknowledged ignorance of the real facts and conditions, is bound to multiply the impediments in the path of humanitarian effort. In the last ten years we have had the spectacle of the friends of the Negro bickering among themselves as to the aim and method of their work. And especially have we for full fifty years felt the hopelessness of many set arguments on the Negro question because of the absence of any common authoritative basis of fact. Just the other day two speakers in the University Extension Series of Philadelphia made substantially the following statements:
The freedman bought land in Georgia, but his sons have not, and are even losing what he had owned. The later generation make such poor workmen that corporations often offer higher wages for convict than for free labor.
The ownership of land by Georgia Negroes has increased by leaps and bounds, save at a few temporary periods of financial depression or political unrest, and the material advance of the great mass of the black people of that state cannot be denied.
This is but a single instance of the almost daily contradiction as to the elementary facts which greets the layman who seeks lights on the present condition of the Negro: Is the Negro buying land or is he not? Is he losing or gaining in the skilled trades? How does his physical health compare with that of the past? Does he receive living wages? Can he vote? What does the graduate of the schools find to do?—all these are specimens of the important questions which to-day can be given no comprehensive or authoritative answer covering large and typical areas. And yet most of them are vitally necessary to a preliminary understanding of the Negro problems, not to say to intelligent plans for reform.
If we look about for agencies which can reasonably be expected to give us at least a partial collection of authoritative data, the most conspicuous is undoubtedly the United States census. So far the census reports are almost our sole source of information as to the condition of the Negro population in general, and for this reason peculiar interest attaches to the Twelfth Census as marking in a peculiar sense the end of an era in the solution of the Negro question as well as in other matters. Some circumstances connected with the preliminary organization of this census leads us to expect from it a somewhat higher degree of accuracy in the past or at least an avoidance of the faults of the discredited ninth and eleventh censuses. As an instrument for social investigation there are certain obvious limitations to the national census. It can successfully measure only the broader and simpler aspects of human society—the number, distribution, age, sex, conjugal condition, and occupations of men. Such matters are easily counted, there is, comparatively speaking, small room for error, and no other agency but the government could command the requisite funds and authority for covering so vast a field. Other data such as those relating to it literacy, deaths, industries, etc. are less obviously suited to the census methods and yet we have just now no better agency. When, however, it comes to matters of land and property, education, crime, and the more delicate and intricate questions of social life, the ordinary machinery of the census is obviously unsuited to the work.
The rather indefinite term "Social Study" has come to be applied to such investigations as seek to go further and deeper than a national census and study definitely and, within limits, exhaustively, the conditions of life and action in certain localities. Such difficult undertakings have very obvious limitations: they must necessarily be confined to small geographical areas; they can after all measure only the more powerful economic and social forces and must largely omit the deeper spiritual and moral impulses; and above all they require for their successful pursuit a high order of ability, insight, and tact. They are also very costly when the paucity of definite or immediately usable results is considered. Nevertheless the Social Study manifestly approaches as nearly as anything the ideal of measuring and classifying human activity.
[¶ 4—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
Du Bois himself works on several well known social studies (e.g., NFVA 1898; NBBS 1999; TPN 1899). In a more general context, social studies, or social surveys, as they are typically called, become a popular research tool in the U.S.A. (Aronovici 1916; Harrison 1916; Kellogg 1912). Surveys of African American communities likewise are conducted—a practice supported not only by scholars of color (e.g., Haynes 1912; R. Wright 1907a and 1907b; Mossell 1921), but also by white scholars (e.g., Elwang 1904; Lindsay 1899; Stone 1902; Thom 1901). Reports, such as those written respectively by Isabel Eaton, Richard R. Wright Jr., Mary White Ovington, or Sadie Tanner Mossell, portray the humanity of African Americans amidst their social progress and social constraints (Eaton 1899; R. Wright 1907a and 1907b; Ovington 1911; Mossell 1921). We can observe that the social survey movement of the early 20th Century typically does not acknowledge the prior surveys conducted by African Americans (Bulmer 1996: 22). It is likewise interesting to mention that scholars not typically associated with the social survey movement, such as Stone (1906) and Elwang (1904), do acknowledge Du Bois's previous research on African Americans.
Here we have then the two agencies upon which we must depend for our knowledge of social conditions and development—the broad general measurements of the Census, the limited specific investigations of the Social Study. It is clear that these two agencies may to a large extent supplement each other. For a given city or town the census furnishes the mass data as to number, age, sex, etc. With this broad outline in hand the sociologist seeks to fill in the details of the picture so as to classify and weigh the life and action of that community. So any particular social problem or series of problems, the careful investigation based upon the census is our best method of acquiring reliable and definite knowledge of social conditions. It is the object of this paper, therefore, to suggest a method of careful co-operation between the authorities in charge of the Twelfth Census and a Special Committee for the Study of the Negro Problems, of such a nature as to give to social reformers the most authoritative and reliable light possible on this grave question.
For the best success of this plan it is necessary that, first, the Twelfth Census be taken with some special reference to gathering material on the Negro in such shape as to be the most available for further investigation: for instance, pains should be taken to count the Negro population thoroughly; to class those of African descent together and not confound with them groups socially so diverse as the Japanese and Indians, to have especial care taken with the age classifications and the statistics of conjugal condition where large errors creep in among the Negro statistics for obvious reasons; above all, the Negro statistics should be so collected as to be easily segregated and counted by themselves. Special pains should be taken to count and classify returns as to Negroes somewhat minutely and elaborately in a special census volume.
As soon as practical, duplicate copies of the original returns as to Negroes should be put in the hands of a Special Committee for the Study of the Negro Problems covering such cities and other areas as they may elect. Upon the appointment of this committee the whole plan, of course, stands or falls. I only insist upon the necessity of some steps to make plain the truth: with all our simple optimism the race problem is assuming great aspects that demand study. An ordinary congressional committee would be unsuitable for this work for political reasons. The best agency would be a voluntary committee of men something like the Committee of Fifty who studied the liquor problem—chosen, as it were, by common consent, but carrying with it the confidence of the better half of the nation. My own idea of a proper committee would be somewhat as follows:
Charles W. Eliot
Charles C. Harrison
Seth Low
George W. Cable
Walter H. Page
William A. Blair
J. L. M. Curry
Booker T. Washington
Francis J. Grimké
Kelly Miller
N. S. Shaler
Daniel C. Gilman
William P. Trent
John G. Carlisle
Grover Cleveland
Hannis Taylor
Richard T. Ely
Richmond Mayo-Smith
Carroll D. Wright
Benjamin F. Lee
William L. Wilson
Bishop Nelson
Bishop Potter
Clement G. Morgan
Wm. H. Baldwin, Jr.
[¶ 7—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
Here Du Bois is referencing the Committee of Fifty for the Investigation of the Liquor Problem, a privately funded group organized in 1893. At Google Books one can enter the search phrase (with quotation marks), "Committee of Fifty" liquor in order to locate various books printed under its auspices.
This list, it will be noted, can be divided as follows:
Men born in the South, 10
Men born in the North, 10
Negroes, 5.
Of the ten Southern men four live at present in the North; of the ten Northern men three are sociologists of wide repute. The Negroes include Mr. Booker T. Washington, Mr. F. J. Grimké, a Presbyterian clergyman of Washington, D.C, Mr. Kelly Miller, a professor in Howard University, Benjamin F. Lee, a bishop of the African Methodist Church, and Clement G. Morgan, an alderman of Cambridge, Mass.
Some such committee as this should have general oversight of a series of social studies into the condition of the American Negro. The object of this investigation should not be philanthropic but scientific—it should aim to collect a reliable and authoritative body of facts and not to point out methods of reform; and it should be the province of the supervising committee simply to guarantee the honest, unbiased, and thorough character of the research. The members of this committee should serve without salary they should appoint the actual work of investigation a body of five—possibly ten—trained specialists of recognized ability who should be salaried men, and should conduct in a number of typical districts and other localities throughout the United States a series of social studies into the condition of the Negro, based primarily on the original returns on the Twelfth Census. From ten to twenty-five such studies should be made covering a space of five years involving a total expenditure of not less than $250,000 or more than $500,000. The returns from these studies should be duly classified and various sub-committees of the Committee of Twenty-five should review the evidence collected and determine the final form of its presentation.
The scope of the inquiry should be well defined. It could without difficulty take the following three subjects:
1. Occupations and Wages.
2. Land, Property, and Taxation.
3. Education.
And with more difficulty it could throw some light on two other subjects:
4. Crime and Punishment.
5. The Right of Suffrage.
This plan is of course capable of any amount of modification: it might be reduced to the carrying out of two or three local studies by means of private benevolence or it might be expanded to a thorough and exhaustive study of the American Negro. In all cases, however, the fundamental propositions which seem to me vital are:
(a) A census taken with especial care as regards the Negro.
(b) A supervising committee of national reputation.
(c) The placing of the original returns of the census in the hands of experts under the guidance of the committee.
(d) A series of social studies based primarily on this data.
Finally, I cannot too strongly insist that the present condition of the Race Question in the United States is critical, and that the Policy of Drift is not the policy that should appeal to a sensible, righteous people. For half the cost of an ironclad to sail about the world and get us into trouble we might know instead of think about the Negro problems.
♦—♦♦♦—♦
•Suggested Resources: Du Bois uses the data from the 1900 U.S. Census (the Twelfth Census) in his "The Negro Farmer" (NFBC 1904). His piece is the second of two essays within the book, which itself contains many pages of data in tabular format. Walter F. Willcox writes the first essay in the book (U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census 1904). Entitled "The Negro Population" (pp.11-68), Willcox summarizes demographic and occupational data gathered from the 1900 Census.
•Original Publication: DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 21:3 (May 1903): pp.160-163. [The May issue pagination corresponds with the Volume 21 pagination of pp.502-505.]
•Historical Context: Du Bois writes and publishes "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University" during the time of his organization of the Atlanta University conferences, which is also a period when the U.S. government is also conducting research on African Americans (F.R. Wilson 2006). He also publishes research for the government agency that becomes the U.S. Department of Labor.
•Text's Significance for Du Bois: In this essay Du Bois broadcasts the fruits of the conferences in the Atlanta University studies (AUPs). The publications seek to improve the life chances of African Americans, such as via the creation of a National Negro Business League. (Booker T. Washington, however, credits Tuskegee Institute with the creation of the business league). Moreover, in the "Laboratory" essay Du Bois appeals for financial support so as to continue the good work already being pursued.
•Text's Importance for Research/Activism: In "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University" Du Bois indicates how research and activism are linked to the educational process.
•Editorial Notes:en1. DuBois's "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University" is published within a section of the Annals of the American Academy entitled "Charities and Social Problems". The essay continues his discussion of the various issues, involving methodological, logistical, historical, and pedagogical concerns, that are related to the research and distribution of the Atlanta University Studies (sometimes called the Atlanta University Publications).
en2. The word "Negro" is not capitalized in the original text presented here.
en3. As published in the journal, the article title is printed as part of the first paragraph; it is not situated prior to and above the text, as I have done so below.
——————
"The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University"
The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University.—There is some ground for suspicion when a small institution of learning offers courses in sociology. Very often such work means simply prolonged discussions of society and social units, which degenerate into bad metaphysics and false psychology, or it may take a statistical turn and the student become so immersed in mere figures as to forget, or be entirely unacquainted with, the concrete facts standing back of the counting.
On the other hand every one feels how necessary social study is,—how widespread in modern times is our ignorance of social facts and processes. In such matters we still linger in a Middle Age of credulity and superstition. We print in the opening chapters of our children's histories theories of the origin and destiny of races over which the gravest of us must smile; we assume, for instance, elaborate theories of an "Aryan" type of political institution, and then discover in the pitso of the South African Basutos as perfect an agora or tungemot as ever existed among Greeks or Germans. At the same time all of us feel the rhythm in human action; we are sure that the element of chance is at least not supreme, and no generation has taken to the study of social phenomena more energetically or successfully than ours. Have we, however, accomplished enough or settled the matter of scope and method sufficiently to introduce the subject of sociology successfully into the small college or the high school?
[¶ 2—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
Perhaps DuBois has in mind Impressions of South Africa in which James Bryce writes about the Basuto people (who are then under British rule):
Once a year the [British] commissioner meets the whole people, in their national assembly called the Pitso,— the name is derived from their verb "to call,"—which in several points recalls the agora, or assembly of freemen described in the Homeric poems. The Paramount Chief presides, and debate is mainly conducted by the chiefs; but all freemen, gentle and simple, have a right to speak in it. There is no voting, only a declaration, by shouts, of the general feeling. Though the Paramount Chief has been usually the person who convokes it, a magnate lower in rank might always, like Achilles in the Iliad, have it summoned when a fitting occasion arose. And it was generally preceded by a consultation among the leading men.... In all these points the resemblance to the primary assemblies of the early peoples of Europe is close enough to add another to the arguments, already strong, which discredit the theory that there is any such thing as an "Aryan type" of institutions....
[P.352 (at Google Books) in James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, 3rd Ed. (NY: Century Co., 1900). Also see Bryce's Studies in History and Jurisprudence, Vol.1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901): pp.137, 267 (Archive.org).]
b.
In the paragraph, Du Bois's phrases "the rhythm in human action" and "the element of chance" anticipate the ideas he expresses a few years later in his unpublished "Sociology Hesitant": specifically, the secondary rhythms involving patterns in human behavior that also can be unpredictable due to human free will (SOCH ca. 1904-5: ¶ 27).
I am not sure that our experience at Atlanta University contributes much toward answering this question, for our position is somewhat exceptional, and yet I think it throws light on it. Atlanta University is situated within a few miles of the geographical centre of the negro population of the nation, and is, therefore, near the centre of that congeries of human problems which cluster round the black American. This institution, which forms in itself a "negro problem," and which prepares students whose lives must of necessity be further factors in this same problem, cannot logically escape the study and teaching of some things connected with that mass of social questions. Nor can these things all be reduced to history and ethics—the mass of them fall logically under sociology.
We have arranged, therefore, what amounts to about two years of sociological work for the junior and senior college students, and we carry on in our conferences postgraduate work in original research. The undergraduate courses in sociology are simply an attempt to study systematically conditions of living right around the university and to compare these conditions with conditions elsewhere about which we are able to learn. For this purpose one of the two years is taken up principally with a course in economics. Here the methods of study are largely inductive, going from field work and personal knowledge to the establishment of the main principles. There is no text-book, but a class-room reference library with from five to ten duplicate copies of well-known works.
[¶ 4—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
Within the Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University ... 1903-1904 (Atlanta University Press, 1904) there is a section on "Sociology and History" that provides details similar to those conveyed in this paragraph and throughout this essay: for example, on p.14 (available at Google Books).
In the next year the study comes nearer what is understood by sociology. Here again after much experiment, we have discarded the text-book, not because a book of a certain sort would not be valuable in the hands of students, but rather because available text-books are distinctly and glaringly unsuitable. The book most constantly referred to is Mayo-Smith's "Statistics and Sociology," and after that the United States censuses. Our main object in this year of work is to find out what characteristics of human life can be known, classified and compared. Students are expected to know what the average death-rate of American negroes is, how it varies, and what it means when compared with the death-rates of other peoples and classes. When they learn by search in the census and their own mathematical calculations that 30 per cent of the negroes of New York City are twenty to thirty years of age, they immediately set to work to explain this anomaly, and so on. A large part of their work consists of special reports, in which the results of first-hand study of some locality or some characteristic of negro life are compared with general conditions in the United States and Europe. Thus in a way we measure the negro problem.
[¶ 5—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
The 1910 reprint of Richmond Mayo-Smith's Statistics and Sociology is available in several formats at the Internet Archive for downloading or for online viewing. (Note that the book's title is listed as Science of Statistics which is actually the overall title of a two-volume set of which this book is the first part
b.
Notice that Du Bois advocates a comparative approach to studying African Americans. View the note in the Editor's Introduction (above) on "Comparative Techniques".
Sometimes these studies are of real scientific value: the class of '99 furnished local studies, which, after some rearrangement, were published in No. 22 of the Bulletin of the United States Department of Labor; the work of another class was used in a series of articles on the housing of the negro in the Southern Workman, and a great deal of the work of other classes has been used in the reports of the Atlanta Conferences. Our main object in the undergraduate work, however, is human training and not the collection of material, and in this we have been fairly successful. The classes are enthusiastic and of average intelligence, and the knowledge of life and of the meaning of life in the modern world is certainly much greater among these students than it would be without such a course of study.
[¶ 6—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
The reference to the Labor Department Bulletin is for Du Bois's "The Negro in the Black Belt: Some Social Sketches" published in the Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No.22 (May 1899): 401-417 [start page at Google Books].
b.
Various articles in Du Bois's series on "The Housing of the Negro", as published in The Southern Workman (1901-1902), can be located via a search at Google Books.
Our postgraduate work in sociology was inaugurated with the thought that a university is primarily a seat of learning, and that Atlanta University, being in the midst of the negro problems, ought to become a centre of such a systematic and thoroughgoing study of those problems as would gradually raise many of the questions above the realm of opinion and guess into that of scientific knowledge. It goes without saying that our ideals in this respect are far from being realized. Although our researches have cost less than $500 a year, yet we find it difficult and sometimes impossible to raise that meagre sum. We lack proper appliances for statistical work and proper clerical aid; notwithstanding this, something has been done. The plan of work is this: a subject is chosen; it is always a definite, limited subject covering some phase of the general negro problem; schedules are then prepared, and these with letters are sent to the voluntary correspondents, mostly graduates of this and other negro institutions of higher training. They, by means of local inquiry, fill out and return the schedules; then other sources of information, depending on the question under discussion, are tried, until after six or eight months' work a body of material is gathered. Then a local meeting is held, at which speakers, who are specially acquainted with the subject studied, discuss it. Finally, about a year after the beginning of the study, a printed report is issued, with full results of the study, digested and tabulated and enlarged by the addition of historical and other material. In this way the following reports have been issued:
[¶ 7—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
This paragraph reiterates points that Du Bois makes several years earlier in his "The Study of the Negro Problems" (SNP 1898): see the section entitled "6. The Proper Agents for this Work" in which he writes of the studies begun at Atlanta University (SNP 1898: ¶ 49). He expresses hope that a Black college would ally itself with schools like "Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania" (SNP 1898: ¶ 48). ["The Study of the Negro Problems" is available in this anthology. {Future-Link}]
No. 1.--Mortality among Negroes in Cities. 51 pp. 1896. (Out of print.)
No. 2.--Social and Physical Conditions of Negroes in Cities. 86 pp. 1897. 50 cents.
No. 3.--Some Efforts of Negroes for Social Betterment. 66 pp. 1898. 50 cents.
No. 4.--The Negro in Business. 78 pp. 1899. 50 cents.
No. 5.--The College-Bred Negro. 115 pp. 1900. (Out of print.) The College-Bred Negro. Second edition, abridged. 32 pp. 25 cents.
No. 6.--The Negro Common School. 118 pp. 1901. 25 cents.
No. 7.--The Negro Artisan. 200 pp. 1902. 50 cents.
No. 8.--The Negro Church. (To be published in 1903.)
[¶ 8—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
Earl Wright discusses the individual volumes of the AUPs in detail (2016).
Of the effect of this sociological work it is difficult for us who are largely responsible for it to judge. Certain it is that there is a call for scientific study of the American negro, and it is also clear that no agency is doing anything in this line except Atlanta University, the United States Census Bureau and the United States Department of Labor. In general our reports have been well received, both in this country and in England, and their material has been widely used. In fact they have not received as much criticism as they deserved, which is perhaps one discouraging feature.
[¶ 9—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
At the U.S. Department of Labor web site, one can read "Black Studies in the Department of Labor, 1897-1907" by Jonathan Grossman (here).
Upon the school, the community and the negro race, the emphasis put on this sort of study has undoubtedly exerted a wholesome influence. It has directed thought and discussion into definite and many times unnoticed channels; it has led to various efforts at social betterment, such as the formation of the National Negro Business League, and it has stimulated healthy self-criticism based on accurate knowledge.8
8Contributed by W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph.D.
[¶ 10—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
The author's byline is placed in a footnote on the last page of the article (in a smaller font size).
♦—♦♦♦—♦
•Suggested Resources:
Morris, Aldon. 2015. The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wright II, Earl. 2016. The First American School of Sociology: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Atlanta Sociological Laboratory.
•Original Publication: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1904. "The Souls of Black Folk." The Independent, Vol.57, No.2920 (November 17): 1152.
•Historical Context: An editor of the periodical The Independent requests that Du Bois write a self-review of The Souls of Black Folk (Phillips 1904). Du Bois does so and the periodical publishes his short essay in 1904. Read the Note, "Background to the 'Souls' Essay," in Section 2 above.
•Text's Significance for Du Bois: Du Bois expresses both support for conventional ways to generate knowledge and an awareness of their limitations, especially for being able to convey the experiences of marginalized persons.
•Text's Importance for Research/Activism: Methods other than conventional social science can be useful for presenting the everyday experiences of African Americans to an audience, especially a White audience. Alternate techniques can be used to supplement, not supplant, existing tools.
•Editorial Notes:en1. The word "Negro" is not capitalized in the original.
One who is born with a cause is pre-destined to a certain narrowness of view, and at the same time to some clearness of vision within his limits with which the world often finds it well to reckon. My book has many of the defects and some of the advantages of this situation. Because I am a negro [sic] I lose something of that breadth of view which the more cosmopolitan races have, and with this goes an intensity of feeling and conviction which both wins and repels sympathy, and now enlightens, now puzzles.
The Souls of Black Folk is a series of fourteen essays written under various circumstances and for different purposes during a period of seven years. It has, therefore, considerable, perhaps too great, diversity. There are bits of history and biography, some description of scenes and persons, something of controversy and criticism, some statistics and a bit of story-telling. All this leads to rather abrupt transitions of style, tone and viewpoint and, too, without doubt, to a distinct sense of incompleteness and sketchiness.
[¶ 2—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
In this paragraph and paragraph 5 Du Bois characterizes The Souls of Black Folk and his feelings towards it in a manner not typically associated with the text, either by him, by many of his supporters, or by later scholars.
On the other hand, there is a unity in the book, not simply the general unity of the larger topic, but a unity of purpose in the distinctively subjective note that runs in each essay. Through all the book runs a personal and intimate tone of self-revelation. In each essay I sought to speak from within—to depict a world as we see it who dwell therein. In thus giving up the usual impersonal and judicial attitude of the traditional author I have lost in authority but gained in vividness. The reader will, I am sure, feel in reading my words peculiar warrant for setting his judgment against mine, but at the same time some revelation of how the world looks to me cannot easily escape him.
This is not saying that the style and workmanship of the book make its meaning altogether clear. A clear central message it has conveyed to most readers, I think, but around this center there has lain a penumbra of vagueness and half-veiled allusion which has made these and others especially impatient. How far this fault is in me and how far it is in the nature of the message I am not sure. It is difficult, strangely difficult, to translate the finer feelings of men into words. The Thing itself sits clear before you; but when you have dressed it out in periods it seems fearfully uncouth and inchoate. Nevertheless, as the feeling is deep the greater the impelling force to seek to express it. And here the feeling was deep.
In its larger aspects the style is tropical—African. This needs no apology. The blood of my fathers spoke through me and cast off the English restraint of my training and surroundings. The resulting accomplishment is a matter of taste. Sometimes I think very well of it and sometimes I do not.
[End of the original text.]
♦—♦♦♦—♦
•Suggested Resources: The 'Souls' essay is becoming a part of our interpretation of Souls the book (ex., Shaw 2013: p.203n.7; B.H. Edwards 2007: p.viii). Other scholars argue that the SBFI apparently conveys Du Bois's response to criticisms raised against the book (ex., Blight & Gooding-Williams 1997: p.254; Erica Griffin 2003: p.32).
•Original Publication: Du Bois, William E.B. "The Individual and Social Conscience" [Originally Untitled]. Pp. 53-55 in Religious Education Association, The Aims of Religious Education. The Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention of the Religious Education Association, Boston, February 12-16, 1905. Chicago: Executive Office of the Religious Education Association, 1905.
•Historical Context: The Religious Education Association convenes its third annual conference in Boston from February 12-16, 1905. Du Bois participates in a section during the Second General Session held on Wednesday evening, 15 February, (R.E.A. 1905: 466). The section's title poses this question "How Can We Develop in the Individual a Social Conscience?" and containes three presentations. Du Bois serves as a discussant and his response does not have a title when it is published in the proceedings.
•Text's Significance for Du Bois: Du Bois implicitly asks: how can duty to pursue social justice be grounded? Moral imperatives do not derive from the facts of the world, otherwise physical force and aggression in its varied forms could be used to justify what should be done—might would make for right; what is, should be as it is.
•Text's Importance for Research/Activism:
Du Bois puts forth in the text an imperative to know about others, and ultimately to comprehend that the greater truth is the essential unity of all humans, regardless of appearance or of perception by others. The IASC suggests a phenomenological method that permits us to understand our social relations with others in terms of an awareness of our particular individual subjectivity, a subjectivity that is integral to our being as embodied in the world (IASC, ¶¶ 1-2). We are part of the world and cannot escape it. Our intellectual desire to understand more about our fellows arises from a theological motivation, which in the short piece is represented by God. (Du Bois after all is speaking before the Religious Education Association, an ecumenical organization). We follow an intellectual quest, so to speak, in which our lack of any direct knowledge of another's feelings and aspirations will lead us to a conception of humans that more adequately describes their common essence, rather than the multitude of their superficial differences (IASC, ¶¶ 3-5).
In the "Individual and Social Conscience" Du Bois structures his argument in a phenomenological way. He argues that the unknowability of another joins us to others in society because we cannot presume to know their experiences or personal knowledge (IASC, ¶¶ 2-3). We can only participate with them as equal members of society (also see Du Bois, "Disfranchisement", DISF ca. 1911-12: p.7; and Darkwater, DARK 1920: Ch. VI). Our embodiment and the idea of a fundamental humanity of all groups entail a duty to personally practice inclusion and respect so as to actively promote justice for all (IASC, ¶¶ 5-7).
In a general sense, Du Bois emphasizes the idea of experience cast in phenomenological terms rather than an empiricist understanding of experience as an object to be quantified. The IASC presents a description of experience as it is grasped by an individual coming to consciousness about her/his place in the world—a place constitutive of ever more inclusive, but never totally complete, knowledge about the humans of the world. In contrast to empirical methods, personal experiences are neither aggregated nor statistically analyzed.
Moreover, the IASC does not methodologically separate the knower from what (or who) is known, such as typifies conventional empiricist methodologies. The knower is not an ostensibly disinterested social researcher, but is (for Du Bois) an engaged scholar. Researchers can be objective, or at least can approximate objectivity, insofar as they pursue truth via the best available research techniques. Researchers, however, are not necessarily neutral precisely because some, like Du Bois, are implicated in the very issues and groups they study (PSOP 1944). Du Bois is both a scholar of race and also a Black man in a racist America. He is embodied within racialized relations of power in ways to which White researchers are not subjected. His research therefore affects him, his family, and other African-diasporic persons in ways not existentially possible for Caucasian scholars in a White supremacist society. Accordingly, via the IASC's phenomenological method the knower (researcher) can not be neutral, but is intimately embodied in the process of coming to know more comprehensively about the social relations between fellow humans in the world.
The IASC's phenomenology resonates with Africana-philosophical themes, especially with what Lewis Gordon calls the metacritique of reason (2008). For Gordon, reason as conceptualized in some strands of Western philosophy helps to justify the oppression of women and persons of color (2008). Such a dominating form of reason is framed as standing above the particularity of specific times and places. Crucially, that conception of reason posits a dichotomy between mind (=reason) and body (=emotion)—a dichotomy that privileges the former and those supposedly associated with it (ex., elite White males), while it also diminishes the latter and those allegedly characterized by it (ex., women and persons of color)(C. Mills 1997; Young 1990). Such an understanding of reason denies or else ignores the value and dignity of the lived experiences of the oppressed. It typically upholds an abstract idea of the putatively universal individual who is shorn of the meaningful differences of communities and history that ground our multifaceted humanity. The IASC, however, challenges the reason/emotion dichotomy by theorizing an embodied individual within a larger (world) community, thereby highlighting their mutually constitutive and meaningful relationships.
[End of Note .]
•Editorial Notes:en1. This text of the IASC in the original publication of the Religious Education Association conference would have been the document available to later readers. An unnamed writer, who seemingly attended the R.E.A. convention, publishes excerpts in the religious periodical Friend's Intelligencer from Du Bois's presentation ("Dangerous Classifying" 1905). Among the passages excerpted from Du Bois's presentation are quotations not found in the published version. However, they are to be found in a draft typescript of Du Bois's discussant piece. This unpublished draft is located within the W.E.B. Du Bois Collection housed in the archives of the Fisk University Library. Entitled "How to Develop in the Individual a Social Conscience", the draft typescript by Du Bois holds:
But the differences emphasized have been, if you remember, differences of body rather than soul – physical differences suited to an age of physics, material differences sprung form a world of bulk and mass and weight. Of the subtler varyings [original] of soul that hide behind the visible strangeness we have said little – passed it all with a waving of hands and turned from the knowing of our neighbors not because there is nothing to know but because the unknown something is difficult to comprehend, hard to reconcile with what, for our ease and comfort, ought to be. [HTDT ca. 1905: ¶ 5]
We may never know exactly why Du Bois's draft typescript paragraphs are not printed as part of the published version in the R.E.A. conference proceedings. That the typescript is available is evidenced by the fact that the anonymously written Friends' Intelligencer editorial uses direct quotations that are seemingly drawn from it ("Dangerous Classifying" 1905: 150).
——————
"The Individual and Social Conscience" [Originally Untitled]
It is impossible for the individual to reach the larger social conscience by sheer expansion, by a benevolent endeavor to be interested in all men. This leads inevitably to a tenuous filmy consciousness, a loss of grip on the realities of human beings—on the concrete man. It becomes easily a theoretical rather than a practical humanitarianism, and has often been illustrated in the world's history by the wavering and doubting of the philanthropic mind.
We can only be interested in men by knowing them—knowing them directly, thoroughly, intimately; and this knowing leads ever to the greatest of human discoveries,—the recognization [sic] of one's self in the image of one's neighbor; the sudden, startling revelation, "This is another Me, that thinks as I think, feels as I feel, suffers even as I suffer." This is the beginning, and the only true beginning, of the social conscience.
But it is the beginning, and not the end. If followed up with real interest and determination, it must lead, next, to the discovery and realization of the stranger, to something at first subtle and fleeting, then shadowing into strength and reality, that tells us, Here in this my neighbor stand things I do not know, experiences I have never felt, depths whose darkness is beyond me, and heights hidden by the clouds; or, perhaps, rather, differences in ways of thinking, and dreaming, and feeling which I guess at rather than know; strange twistings of soul that curve between the grotesque and the awful.
But to them that persevere, to them that say, "I do not just comprehend why a working-man loves to get drunk, or why a housemaid buys curious hats, or why a negro [sic] basks lazily in the sun, these, and yet greater things, I do not understand, and yet I will, in God's truth, seek to know all this and more,"—to such hearts and minds will come in time the glimpse of a larger answer, the faint yet growing comprehension of human likenesses that both transcend and explain the differences, and that reveal, in the realization, the essential humanity of all men,—that strange kernel of life, which, hidden though it be, and in body, thought, and surrounding far removed from us, is yet for us and in us, the greatest fact in the world.
Once this is recognized, then comes the only practical synthesis in this world of self-sacrifice and self-development: the recognition of myself as one of a world of selves, not as all, but as one; not as nothing, but as one.
Hither the social conscience must come, without wavering, without compromise. In a world of men, even of differing and different men, we cannot, on account of cowardice, treat any of these men as less than men; we cannot slink back of Darwinism, to discover excuses, or whiten our lies by laying them on the Lord. If you have aspirations above the dirt, why may not your coachman? If you, in the choking narrowness, stretch groping arms for air, why may not the hod-carrier be dissatisfied too? If you count yourselves as something more than your money, why may not I?
To induce, then, in men a consciousness of the humanity of all men, of the sacred unity in all the diversity, is not merely to lay down a pious postulate, but it is the active and animate heart-to-heart knowledge of your neighbors, high and low, black and white, employer and employed; it means a firm planting of human ideals; the training of children to be through their doing, and not simply to do through their being; the setting of our faces like flint against the modern heresy that money makes the man, and a reverent listening, not simply to the first line but to the last line of Emerson's quatrain:
"There is no great, no small,
To the Soul that maketh all;
Where it cometh, all things are—
And it cometh everywhere."
[¶ 7—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
The quotation is a modified version of one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's two epigraphs to his essay "History". The original reads:
There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere. [p.3]
♦—♦♦♦—♦
•Suggested Resources:
Blum, Edward. 2007. W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet.
Bumstead, Horace. 1905. "Dr. Du Bois in Boston".
Williams, Robert W. and W.E.B. Du Bois [Primary Source]. 2012. "'The Sacred Unity in All the Diversity': The Text and a Thematic Analysis of W.E.B. Du Bois's 'The Individual and Social Conscience' (1905)".
•Original Publication: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1957. The Ordeal of Mansart. NY: Mainstream Publishers. Postscript: pp.315-316.
•Historical Context:The Ordeal of Mansart is the first book in the Black Flame trilogy. Through the various fictional characters, Du Bois presents various aspects of his thoughts about social justice and change.
•Text's Significance for Du Bois: Du Bois as an historian recognizes that there are serious limitations to what can be studied via historical techniques.
•Text's Importance for Research/Activism: In addition to social research, what cannot be studied due to the unrecoverability of evidence lost to time is also significant for activism. Specifically, Du Bois advocates the use of historical imagination to complete the details of a narrative, details based on what is possible but nonetheless not necessarily accurate.
•Editorial Notes:en1. In the original text, Du Bois capitalizes "Never" (¶ 2) and "Time" (¶ 5).
The basis of this book is documented and verifiable fact, but the book is not history. On the contrary, I have used fiction to interpret those historical facts which otherwise would not be clear. Beyond this I have in some cases resorted to pure imagination in order to make unknown and unknowable history relate an ordered tale to the reader. In a few cases I have made slight and unimportant changes in the exact sequence of historical events and in names and places. In no case have these changes altered, to my mind, the main historical background.
It may well be asked, and as one who has done some historical research I join in the asking, why should one tamper with history at all in order to write truth? The answer of course is Never, if exact truth can otherwise be ascertained. But every historian is painfully aware how little the scientist today can know accurately of the past; how dependence on documents and memory leaves us all with the tale of the past half told or less. The temptation then comes to pretend we know far more than we do and to set down as accurate history that which is not demonstrably true. To me it seems wiser and fairer to interpret historical truth by the use of creative imagination, provided the method is acknowledged and clear.
When in this world we seek the truth about what men have thought and felt and done, we face insuperable difficulties. We seldom can see enough of human action at first hand to interpret it properly. We can never know current personal thought and emotion with sufficient understanding rightly to weigh its cause and effect. After action and feeling and reflection are long past, then from writing and memory we may secure some picture of the total truth, but it will be sorely imperfect, with much omitted, much forgotten, much distorted.
This is the eternal paradox of history. There is but one way to meet this clouding of facts and that is by the use of imagination where documented material and personal experience are lacking.
In the great tragedy of Negro slavery in the United States and its aftermath, much of documented history is lacking because of the deep feeling involved and the fierce desire of men to defend their fathers and themselves. This I have sought to correct in my study of the slave trade and of Reconstruction. If I had had time and money, I would have continued this pure historical research. But this opportunity failed and Time is running out. Yet I would rescue from my long experience something of what I have learned and conjectured and thus I am trying by the method of historical fiction to complete the cycle of history which has for a half century engaged my thought, research and action.
I have personally lived through much of the history of the American Negro from 1876 to 1956. Yet wide as my experience has been, by travel, seeing, hearing and knowing, I of course actually knew but an infinitesimal fraction of all that happened. The gaps of knowledge I can in part supply by the memory of others, by reading published and unpublished matter. Yet with all this I am far from being able to set down an accurate historical account of those fatal eighty years.
[¶ 6—Comments and Notes on the Text]
a.
Du Bois here stresses the importance of both the direct knowledge gained via personal experience and also the knowledge-about gained via conventional historical methods.
Therefore I have assayed first to gather such verifiable facts as I can. This body of knowledge I have compared with the reports of others. But even with all this, much, indeed most, is missing: just what men thought, the actual words they used, the feelings and motives which impelled them—those I do not know and most of them none will ever know. These facts are gone forever. But it is possible for the creative artist to imagine something of such unknown truth. If he is lucky or inspired, he may write a story which may set down a fair version of the truth of an era, or a group of facts about human history.
This I have attempted to do: adhering as closely as I can to historic fact so far as I can ascertain. I have added the fiction of interpretation so as to make a reasonable story. I may have blundered in places; I may have widely misinterpreted what seemed truth to me. But I have tried and I believe the effort was worth while.
Here lies, then, I hope, more history than fiction, more fact than assumption, much truth and no falsehood.
♦—♦♦♦—♦
•Suggested Resources:
Porter, Lavelle. 2017. "W.E.B. Du Bois, The Black Flame, and the Struggle Ahead."
Porter, Lavelle. 2018. "W.E.B. Du Bois and the Representation of Black Higher Education."
Secondary Sources
[A Note to the Editorial Board: I plan to add a few texts (or excerpts) by authors other than Du Bois: ex., Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892); Frederick Douglass, "The Color Line" (1881); excerpts from Frederick Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro (1896); excepts from Joseph Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America (1902); and Franz Boas, "Commencement Address at Atlanta University, May 31, 1906" (1906). Such sources will include the scholarly apparatus that I employ for Du Bois's primary sources.]
Works Cited: W.E.B. Du Bois
Nota Bene: The in-text citations to W.E.B. Du Bois's works typically include an abbreviated title and year of publication. Below, the works are alphabetized by their abbreviated titles, not by their complete titles.
A68. 1968. The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century. NY: International Publishers.
AAFR. 1961. "Africa and the French Revolution." Freedomways, 1 (Summer): 136-151.
AUP 22. 1943. The First Conference of Negro Land-Grant Colleges for Co-ordinating a Program of Cooperative Social Studies. Atlanta, GA: The Atlanta University Press.
AUP 23. 1944. The Second Conference of Negro Land-Grant Colleges for Co-ordinating a Program of Cooperative Social Studies. Atlanta, GA: The Atlanta University Press.
BFMB. 1959. Mansart Builds a School [Black Flame, Vol. 2]. NY: Mainstream Publishers.
BFOM. 1957. The Ordeal of Mansart. [Black Flame, Vol. 1]. NY: Mainstream Publishers.
BFTN. 1939 [4th Printing 1945]. Black Folk Then and Now: An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race. NY: Henry Holt and Company.
BLFO. 1939. Black Folk, Then and Now: An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race. NY: Henry Holt and Company.
BNS1, BNS2, BNS3, BNS4, BNS5. 1901. "The Black North: A Social Study." Five-part series published in the New York Times.
BREC. 1935. Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880. NY: Harcourt Brace & Company. URL: http://archive.org/details/blackreconstruc00dubo
CDCP. 1945. Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace. NY: Harcourt Brace.
CDSL. 1948. "Color and Democracy" [Typescript of speech to be delivered at the St. Louis Book Lovers Club, February 27, 1948]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives.University of Massachusetts Amherst Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b273-i078
CMNP. 1933. "Marxism and the Negro Problem." The Crisis, 40:5 (May): 103-4, 118.
CNA. 1926. "Criteria of Negro Art." The Crisis, 32:6 (October): 290-297.
CNAL. 1921. "The Contribution of the Negro to American Life and Culture." Pacific Review; 2:1 (June): 127-132.
DDRC. 1934. "Dr. DuBois Resigns." The Crisis, v.40 (August):.245-246. Pp.770-772 in Writings in Periodicals Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections from The Crisis, Volume 2: 1926-1934. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1983.
DISF. Ca. 1911-12. "Disfranchisement". In Pamphlets in Favor of Womman Suffrage, Vol. 4. NY: National American Woman Suffrage Association, ca. 1912. Online at HathiTrust: start page.
DNNS. 1935. "Does the Negro Need Separate Schools." Journal of Negro Education, 4:3 (July): 328-335.
DNVS. 1906. "Die Negerfrage in den Vereinigten Staaten." Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 22 (January): 31-79.
DRKP. 1928. Dark Princess. NY: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
DUSK. 1940 [1986]. Dusk of Dawn. In W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings. Ed. by Nathan Huggins. NY: Library of America.
EONL. 1901. "The Evolution of Negro Leadership." The Dial, v.31 (July 16): pp.53-55.
EORP. 1909. "Evolution of the Race Problem." Pp.142-158 in the Proceedings of the National Negro Conference. NY: s.n. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbEvolOfRaceProb.html
EOTN. 1910. "Evolution of the Negro." American Missionary, New Series, 1:11 (February): 973-975.
FNRA. 1904. "The Future of the Negro Race in America." The East and the West. v.2 (January): 4-19.
GBF. 1924. The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America. Boston: Stratford Co. [NY: Washington Square Press, 1970].
HAPS. 1904. "Heredity and the Public Schools." Pp. 45-52 in Pamphlets and Leaflets. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. White Plains, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1986.
HBGW. 1919. "An Essay Toward a History of the Black Man in the Great War." Crisis, 18:2 (June): 63-87.
HTDT. Ca. 1905. "How to Develop in the individual a Social Conscience" [Undated typescript]. W.E.B. Du Bois Collection, 1867-1963. Fisk University Archives: Box 55, Folder 2.
IASC. 1905. "The Individual and Social Conscience" [Originally Untitled]. Pp.53-55 in Religious Education Association, The Aims of Religious Education. The Proceedings of the Third Annual Convention ..., 1905. Chicago: Executive Office of the R.E.A. URL: www.archive.org/details/proceedingsofann03reliuoft [Alternate URL: www.webdubois.org/dbIASC.html].
IBFP. 1952. In Battle for Peace; The Story of My 83rd Birthday. [Appendix & Postscript by Shirley Graham.] NY: Masses & Mainstream.
IFRE. 1949. "The Nature of Intellectual Freedom." P.78 in Gillmor, Daniel S. (Ed.), Speaking of Peace. [An edited report of the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace, New York, March 25, 26, and 27, 1949 under the auspices of National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions]. New York: National Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions, 1949.
IMMT. 1935 [1928]. "Immortality." P.18 in We Believe in Immortality: Affirmations by One Hundred Men and Women, Second Edition. Ed. by Sydney Dix Strong. NY: Press of the Pioneers.
IRSP. 1908. "Is Race Separation Practicable?" American Journal of Sociology, Vol.XIII (May): 834-838.
JAE. 1944. "Jacob and Esau." The Talladegan, 62:1 (November): 1-6. [Talladega College, Talladega, AL].
JB. 1909. John Brown. Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs & Company.
JBR. 1962. John Brown. [Reprinted with new material added by Du Bois ]. NY: International Publishers.
KCW. [1985]. Creative Writings by W.E.B. Du BOis: A Pageant, Poems, Short Stories, and Playlets. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. White Plains, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited.
LAPA. 1943. "Letter from W.E.B. Du Bois to American Philosophical Association, December 13, 1943." [Letter to Charles W. Hendel]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b099-i286
LCH. 1943. "Letter from W.E.B. Du Bois to American Philosophical Association, December 13, 1943." [Letter to Charles W. Hendel]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b099-i286
LHA. 1956. Letter from W.E.B. Du Bois to Herbert Aptheker, 10 January 1956. Pp.394-396 in W.E.B. Du Bois, The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois, Vol. III: Selections, 1944-1963. Herbert Aptheker (Ed.). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1978.
LOJB. 1909. "The Legacy of John Brown." Ch.XIII in Du Bois, John Brown. Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs & Company.
LSAU. 1903. "The Laboratory in Sociology at Atlanta University." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 21:3 (May): 160-163. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbLabSocAtUni.html
MEPF. 1944. "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom." Pp.31-70 in Rayford W. Logan (Ed.), What the Negro Wants. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbMyEvolvingPrgm.html.
MSEN. 1937. "Confidential Memorandum Regarding the Significance of the Proposed Encyclopedia of the Negro" [Letter sent to Anson Phelps Stokes, 1937]. Pp. 160-164 in W.E.B. Du Bois, Against Racism: Unpublished Essays, Papers, Addresses, 1887-1961. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1985.
NATB. 1906. "The Negro American and the Ballot." Richmond Planet [VA], vol.XXIII, no.12 (24 February 1906): pp.1,8. [Du Bois's speech at the Constitution League Meeting on 2 February 1906 in the Cooper Union, New York City; speech was contained within a news article entitled "Awakening of the North"]. Link to speech.
NCCA. 1953. "Negroes and the Crisis of Capitalism in the United States." Monthly Review (April). Online: article.
NCIT. 1930. "The Negro Citizen." Pp. 461-470 in Charles S. Johnson, The Negro in Civilization. NY: Henry Holt and Company.
NCTN. 1909 "National Committee on the Negro." The Survey, 22:11 (June 12): 407-409.
NFBC. 1904. "The Negro Farmer." Pp. 69-98 in U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor. Bureau of the Census. Negroes in the United States. Bulletin 8. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
NIOL. 1905. "The Negro Ideals of Life." The Christian Register, 84.43 (October 26): 1197-1199.
NISN. 1900. "The Negro in the South and in the North." Lecture V (pp.18-21) in G.R. Glenn, William A. Blair, Walter H. Page, Kelly Miller, W.E.B. Du Bois, & H.B. Frissell, University Extension Lectures: Syllabus of a Course of Six Lectures on the American Negro. [Series J, No.12]. Philadelphia: American Society for the Extension of University Teaching.
NLAA. 1913. "The Negro in Literature and Art." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 49 (November): 233-238.
OCSC. 1933. "Our Class Struggle." The Crisis, v.40 (July): 164-165. Pp.711-713 in Writings in Periodicals Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections from The Crisis, Volume 2: 1926-1934. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1983.
OHWI. 1960. "Oral History Interview of W.E.B. Du Bois by William Ingersoll, ca. June 1960." W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Amherst Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b237-i137
OHYS. 1953. "One Hundred Years in the Struggle for Negro Freedom." Freedom, (January 1953). Pp.1111-1116 in Newspaper Columns by W.E.B. Du Bois, Vol. 2: 1945-1961. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1986.
OROM. 1920. "Of the Ruling of Men." Ch. VI In W.E.B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil. NY: Harcourt, Brace and Howe.
P2CN. 1950. "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line, January 14, 1950." [Newspaper article: Pittsburgh Courier, 14 January 1950, pp.8-9]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Amherst Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b216-i004
P4NM. Ca. 1889. "Philosophy IV Notebook, ca. 1889." W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b230-i008 [Metadata indicates "circa 1889" as the possible date of creation]
PDOS. Undated, 1936 [?]. "A Proposed Definition of Sociology" [Typescript]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b077-i175 [Metadata indicates "1936?" as the possible date of creation].
PFSM. Undated, Ca. 1897. "A Program for a Sociological Society." [Manuscript]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b196-i034 [Metadata indicates "ca. 1897" as the possible date of creation].
PFST. Undated, Ca. 1897. "A Program for a Sociological Society." [Typescript]. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b196-i035 [Metadata indicates "ca. 1897" as the possible date of creation].
PSOM. 1957. "Postscript". Pp.315-316 in Du Bois, The Ordeal of Mansart. NY: Mainstream Publishers.
RNAT. 1903. "The Negro in Africa and America. By Joseph Alexander Tillinghast" [Review]. Political Science Quarterly, 18:4 (December): 695-697.
RPAN. 1918. "American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips." [Book review]. American Political Science Review, v.12 (November):722-726.
RSOD. 1939. "The Revelation of St. Orgne the Damned, 1939." Credo Repository. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b285-i144. [Commencement Address, Fisk University, 1938. Pamphlet published in Nashville, TN by Hemphill Press.]
RTCE. 1911. "Races". The Crisis, 2:4 (August): 157-158.
RTTP. 1901. "Results of the Ten Tuskegee Conferences." [Pamphlet]. Tuskegee, AL: Tuskegee Institute Steam Print.
RTTR. 1897. "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. By Frederick L. Hoffman, F.S.S." [Book Review]. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, v. 9 (January): pp.127-133.
RTWC. 1933. "The Right to Work." The Crisis, v.40 (April): 93-94. Pp.692-694 in Writings in Periodicals Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections from The Crisis, Volume 2: 1926-1934. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1983.
SANP. 1913. "Socialism and The Negro Problem." The New Review: A Weekly Review of International Socialism. (1 February).
SAST. 1896. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. NY: Longmans, Green. URL: www.webdubois.org/wdb-sast.html.
SBFI. 1904. "The Souls of Black Folk." The Independent, Vol.57, No.2920 (November 17): 1152.
SEBS. 1911. The Social Evolution of the Black South. American Negro Monographs, Vol.1, No.4 (March). Washington, D.C.: American Negro Monographs Co.
SHMA. Undated, Ca. 1946 [?]. "Steps Toward a Science of How Men Act, ca. 1946." [Typescript: 4 pages, plus 3 pages of handwritten notes by Du Bois]. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b213-i071 [Metadata indicates "Circa 1946" as the possible date of creation]
SNP. 1898. "The Study of the Negro Problems." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 11 (January): 1-23. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbStudyofnprob.html.
SOCH. Ca. 1904-1905. "Sociology Hesitant." W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Amherst Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b212-i003 [Metadata indicates "ca. 1905" as the possible date of creation]
SOPE. 1937. "On the Scientific Objectivity of the Proposed Encyclopedia of the Negro and on Safeguards against the Intrusion of Propaganda." [Memorandum to Anson Phelps]. Pp.164-168 in Against Racism: Unpublished Essays, Papers, Addresses, 1887–1961. Ed. by Herbert Aptheker. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1985.
SOST. Undated. "A Science of Sociology" [Undated typescript]. W.E.B. Du Bois Collection, 1867-1963. Fisk University Archives: Box 18, Folder 30.
SSCL. 1901. "The Spawn of Slavery: The Convict Lease System in the South." Missionary Review of the World, Vol.14 (October): 737-745.
SSTA. 1954. "Apologia" for 1954 reprinting of Du Bois's The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. NY: The Social Science Press. [The entire book is accessible via the HathiTrust Digital Library: catalog page.]
SWFD. 1920. "The Souls of White Folk", Ch. II in Darkwater (1920).
SWFI. 1910. "The Souls of White Folk." The Independent, Vol. 69, No. 3220 (August 18, 1910): 339-342. Online at Archive.org: start page
T10. 1903. "The Talented Tenth." Pp. 31-75 in Booker T. Washington et al., The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative American Negroes of To-Day. NY: James Pott & Co.
TAUC. 1903. "The Atlanta University Conferences." Charities, 10:18 (May 2): 435-439.
TCOR. 1897. "The Conservation of Races." The American Negro Academy Occasional Papers, No. 2. Washington, D.C.: American Negro Academy. URL: www.webdubois.org/dbConsrvOfRaces.html.
TPON. 1903. "The Possibilities of the Negro: The Advance Guard of the Race." Booklover's Magazine, 2:1 (July): 3-15.
TPST. Undated, Ca. 1905 [?]. "The Princess Steel, 1905 ?" W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections & University Archives. University of Massachusetts Amherst Library. URL: http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b236-i002 [Metadata indicates "1905 ?" as the possible date of creation]
TROE. 1889. "The Renaissance of Ethics: A Critical Comparison of Scholastic and Modern Ethics." [Thesis in Philosophy IV; Harvard University. William James, Professor]. W.E.B. Du Bois Collection (JWJ MSS 8, Box 3, Folder 57). Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Yale University. URL: http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3490101
TRS. 1912. "The Rural South." Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, v.13 (March): 80-84.
TSRE. 1923. "The Superior Race (An Essay)." The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, 70:4 (April): 55-60.
UICT. 1901. Du Bois Testimony before the U.S. Industrial Commission (13 February 1901): pp.159-175. Reports of the Industrial Commission; v.15. Washington, DC: GPO.
UOBD. 1912. "The Upbuilding of Black Durham. The Success of the Negroes and Their Value to a Tolerant and Helpful Southern City." World's Work, v.23 (January): 334-338.
WAA. 1947. The World and Africa. NY: Viking Press.
WSCE. 1915. "Woman Suffrage." The Crisis, (November): 29-30.
Works Cited: Other Authors and Editors
Addams, Jane. 1907. Newer Ideals of Peace. NY: Macmillian Company.
Addams, Jane. 1913. "Why Women Should Vote." Pp.139-158 in Frances Maule & Annie Porritt (Eds.), Woman Suffrage: History, Arguments, and Results. NY: National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Aisch Gregor & K.K. Rebecca Lai. 2017. "The Conflicts Along 1,172 Miles of the Dakota Access Pipeline." New York Times, Updated 20 March 2017. (Originally published 23 November 2016). Online: article.
Alexander, Shawn Leigh. 2015. W.E.B. Du Bois: An American Intellectual and Activist. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Alridge, Derrick P. 2008. The Educational Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois: An Intellectual History. NY: Teachers College Press.
Anderson, Eric D. 1999. "Black Responses to Darwinism, 1859-1915". Pp.247-266 in Numbers, Ronald L. & John Stenhouse (Eds), Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Anonymous. 1910. "John Brown. By W. E. Burghardt Du Bois." The Independent, v.68, n.3194 (17 February): 370-371.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2014. Lines of Descent: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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