One of the most prominent of all African American leaders of the 20th century, William Edward Burghardt DuBois (1868-1963), a self-proclaimed "race man" was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. DuBois was educated primarily in the North at Harvard and in Germany where he prepared for his Ph.D. However, it was when attended school at Fisk that he was confronted the appalling racism prevalent in the South: an experience that helped to shape his political philosophy and life's work. By the time he became a professor at Wilberforce University in Ohio, DuBois was a published author. DuBois had made it his mission to seek out "forums beyond academe from which he could address fundamental problems of race and justice in the United States" and one of those forums was the written page.
He was published in such prestigious literary journals as The Atlantic Monthly and The Dial, and his essays focused on sociological aspects of the black experience that pertained to experiential and socio-economic issues affecting blacks such as land ownership, family, the church, urbanization, and mortality. Dubois conducted extensive research concerning criminality among the newly-freed African American population following Reconstruction. In a theory similar to that of Emile Durkheim, DuBois concluded that criminal behavior escalated among African Americans due to the socio-economic marginalization of blacks following the war as Reconstruction had been a colossal failure. Further, Du Bois contended that criminality among newly freed blacks would decrease as blacks were enabled to enjoy rights on par with whites. Finally, in order to uplift the circumstances of freed blacks in the South, a select group of gifted intellects--the Talented Tenth--would emerge to lead African Americans to a secure footing in American culture.
He was published in such prestigious literary journals as The Atlantic Monthly and The Dial, and his essays focused on sociological aspects of the black experience that pertained to experiential and socio-economic issues affecting blacks such as land ownership, family, the church, urbanization, and mortality. Dubois conducted extensive research concerning criminality among the newly-freed African American population following Reconstruction. In a theory similar to that of Emile Durkheim, DuBois concluded that criminal behavior escalated among African Americans due to the socio-economic marginalization of blacks following the war as Reconstruction had been a colossal failure. Further, Du Bois contended that criminality among newly freed blacks would decrease as blacks were enabled to enjoy rights on par with whites. Finally, in order to uplift the circumstances of freed blacks in the South, a select group of gifted intellects--the Talented Tenth--would emerge to lead African Americans to a secure footing in American culture.
By the turn of the last century, DuBois outlined his philosophies on race and distilled his ideas concerning the cultures, traditions, values, and experience that went to construct the 'soul' of African Americans. In 1903, he published the text for which he is most readily known, The Souls of Black Folk.
In Souls of Black Folk, DuBois explored the experience of "Double Consciousness": a term he used to describe the peculiar experience of African Americans in seeking out a means of self-definition in the face of a white power structure. To be able to forge an identity that coupled one's African origins with a New World experience was chief among DuBois's concerns. Further, DuBois articulated the struggles of post-Reconstruction African Americans initiated by the color line that separated whites from blacks in the U.S. This color line he articulated throughout Souls of Black Folk through the metaphor of the "veil."
By 1910, Dubois was rising in rank as a key civil rights leader: he founded and served as editor of the magazine, The Crisis, the principle publication for the NAACP. Though he frequently used the magazine as a forum in which he outlined American racial politics, his focus was broadening to encompass questions concerning Pan-African issues. Envisioning a "Great Council of Darker People, Dubois arranged international Pan-African conferences in the United States and in Europe, hoping to forge a greater sense of global community bound by historical and cultural memory. DuBois's actions during this time set the precedent for the waves of Black National thinking that would later be embraced and expanded upon by thinkers such as the Martinican psychiatrist and revolutionary, Franz Fanon, and African-Martinican poet and educator, Aimie Cesaire.
His essay, "Criteria of Negro Art" outlines his conviction that all art is propaganda, and as such, is created for the purpose of racial uplift. In the late 1920s and 1930s during the Harlem Renaissance, Dubois would find his views in contest with many of his contemporaries. According to our text, his comparatively radical views rankled fellow leaders and the artists of the time, who resisted his adherence to art-as-propaganda. Writers such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston criticized his staunch politicization of creative output; his resistance to an incorporation of folk tradition as a primary motif of African American literary expression, and many writers of the time scoffed at his comparatively pretentious, "priggish" literary style (Gates).
Despite his lack of popularity among some writers of his day, Dubois's name still resonates, as he was the father of Black Studies, and his contribution to African American Academics is immeasurable. Dubois remained active politically well into his life: in 1961, he and his wife accepted an invitation from President Kwame Nkrumah to visit Ghana and commence work on the Encyclopedia Africana. When he was refused a return passport, Dr. Dubois renounced his U.S. citizenship and became a Ghanan citizen. He died in Accra, Ghana in 1962, just one day before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech (1).
I think W.E.B Dubois was and still is a wonder in the african American culture.
ReplyDeleteTiara Bell
I feel that W. E. B. DuBois had a vision of how he would like the black race to present itself. Yet, he wanted the culture and history of the race to be set aside. The folk aspect of this culture reveals how the African-American endured changes both voluntarily and involuntarily.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment and keen insight! See you next week:)
DeleteDuBois thought that all creative works by African American are in some way a form of propaganda, be it intentional or unintentional. His thought on this were based on the face of the social status of blacks at the time and that all works of art by black had a greater meaning to it.
ReplyDeleteWhat DuBois meant by white people can not see America in the eyes of how African Americans can was that white people wasn't treated as cruel as African Americans which still till this day are outcasts.
ReplyDeleteSherry Wilkins
DuBois was a powerful person.
ReplyDeleteBy seeing the country in ways that white Americans can not, he meant that they started from the bottom below animals and worked their way to citizens. Even with rights, they were still seen as less than white americans, and Dubouis felt as if they weren't even given the rights they deserved just by being human. He felt as if whites didnt know how if fet and didnt know how to see the world because they didnt experience the same suffering and have to do so much work just be be treated "normal" -Demarcus A
ReplyDeleteWhat Dubois meant when he said,"We who are dark can see America in a way that white Americans cannot," was that white Americans wasn't treated as cruel as African Americans and wasn't outcasts such as African Americans are still today, so they cannot relate to how we view America which is unfair and vicious.
ReplyDelete