«004‘ d \‘f.\- fim‘.‘ c - 0 .~ n -—'O o“ - - LMM.‘ I‘ O M .- 0' -’- ‘n‘ “" -"“ ’ '“‘,‘-f". .7...‘ --'¢.-.o¢.~.-~ '-OO.—'---fl““-wY-'vfi"|—' y"--.-‘vv --_._-.- .-- w-.. =; ’ w. .E. .3. DUBOlS; THE :lNTELLECTU ER ~ ROPAGANDI I» ‘ ; —v . ' \‘_> ~ Th is for the Degree of M -. A. . , MICHIGAN STATE UNWERSITY - 73 ' FOR T H. C. HOLMAN, JR. ‘ 5. I ' 1971 -Iv . . . c ‘ . O \ . . . x A \ u . .- v 0 ' - _-‘,-... luruf¢~o-......r-qu‘0 7-..01 - a""’ ' ‘ "' V '. _.. 0-40 -..-.—.-..g(’r-.‘ - . - o - ' v ' ...,. ‘ .‘, .._.o r'r-ooco _‘, .. -. 'vo...-- .. '- ' I.‘. . ‘5 ' r“, . , . . < r .A. t . .,-. rvo ~ 9 V ' 7.". '.,0--‘0 ' , - 4,-ascl _.,.,.. ...O~(fr""““ ‘ , ‘ ...' 0’ - _ ..- .o-'- ,ygyaoao""' '. -...oa.’.' ~ I'."".'fl" ' ' o -..--. u..'r“0.'.”f" o . I . . ' ‘- ..g....» .l‘.‘ .‘I - .' a , v '.P - ‘ ,. v» 9 . ‘ l g .. o 0" ' - ‘. 7 O...' - ..' o o ‘ ”0 "- -"> '. '-. f t. l _. ' _' . n . ...a, ' -‘ " I'V " ‘ ‘ , I ‘ ........ao-.~oapurva - ‘ .. ..'. ‘ ".._,’.-—'_.Jl.' .. ' ~n~lfl , 0- ‘¢. ..-uoia- vI—I"'- l‘ ‘. ‘-.--.i. 1 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I» 310423 4558 ABSTRACT W. E. B. DUBOIS: THE INTELLECTUAL AS MASTER PROPAGANDIST BY Forest H. C. Holman, Jr. American history is replete with the names of many Black Americans who have made noteworthy contributions to the cause of human rights. Although many of these persons have been critical of America and its social, econOmic, and political practices, their efforts of criticism have nevertheless, dared America to fully enact its principles of democracy. The intellectual career of William Edward Burghardt DuBois was one which significantly contributed to the ideal of intellectual freedom. It embodied the principles of free and open criticism of the racist social practices of his homeland. The majority of research for this paper comprises the years which DuBois served as editor of the Crisis, the official organ of the N.A.A.C.P. (1910—1934). I have 1 Forest H. C. Holman, Jr. attempted to show how DuBois utilized the Crisis as a platform to Spread scientifically oriented social prOpa— ganda for the advancement of Black peOple in America. Extensive use has been made of his many books and articles in print. These sources along with DuBois' auto— biographies and biographies are indiSpensable in arriving at various theories and conclusions concerning DuBois' scholastic career, and the gradual evolution and matura- tion of his socio—political thoughts. From my research, I have arrived at several sig- nificant conclusions. First, through the insightful teachings of his mother, he developed a strong humanitar- ian concern for the equal treatment of all Americans. Second, as a result of his formal academic training, it became his conviction that regardless of the consequences, a man must never surrender his integrity. His editorship of the Crisis attests to the tenacity and pursuance of his philOSOphy. For thirty-four years as editor of the Crisis he worked diligently to make the plight of Black Americans heard, and justly understood by all others. Third, since DuBois was a man of radical reason, his ideas for reforming 2 Forest H. C. Holman, Jr. the United States was ahead of his time, as illustrated by his struggle for the cause of human rights, abolition of lynching, elimination of voter poll tax, and his Oppo— sition to racial discrimination in all forms of social interaction. Fourth, the refdrm efforts of DuBois were indispensable to the practice of American democracy. Finally, although DuBois made many harsh comments concerning the Oppressive conditions in America, he was unable to live and witness the fruits of his valiant efforts. Thus DuBois was an intellectual giant who re- fused to compromise his ultimate principles, at least as he saw them. His continuing criticism of America's socio—economic imperfections eventually caused him to renounce his American citizenship. He died on August 27, 1963 in Accra Ghana, at the age of 93, while researching the Encyc10pedia Africana. W. E. B. DUBOIS: THE INTELLECTUAL AS AS MASTER PROPAGANDIST BY Forest H. C. Holman, Jr. A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History 1971 DED ICAT ION This thesis is dedicated to my parents Mr. and Mrs. Forest Holman, Sr. in sincere appreciation for their many years of sacrifice and encouragement which has enabled me to have reached this goal in their lifetime. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The preparation and completion of this thesis was aided through the sincere efforts of many wonderful peOple. I would like to eXpress my thanks to my advisor, Professor William B. Hixson, Jr., whose suggestions on organization and content were most beneficial in making this a very rewarding and enriching scholarly eXperience. Also a supreme debt of gratitude is graciously extended to my wife Beverly who so steadfastly provided her encouragement, patience, and understanding while this thesis was being prepared and completed, for her deep and abiding faith in me I am most appreciative. My thanks also to my wonderful son Karriem who was most understanding and c00perative in allowing me to complete this effort. My thanks and appreciation to Dr. Robert L. Green, Director of the Center for Urban Affairs, who arranged to have one of several drafts for this thesis typed for me through the services of staff secretary Mrs. Ann Goodison iii and her husband. Nigel. who so patiently translated my writing. My thanks also to Professor Leslie B. Rout. Jr.. who contributed measurably to the outcome of this work through his helpful and meaningful suggestions without which this work would have never been started. My appreciation to the fine and dedicated staff in the reference department of the Michigan State Public Library in Lansing. Michigan. who were so professionally helpful. understanding. and patient in providing me with the research materials so necessary to the completion of this work. Finally to the countless friends and relatives who provided constant and unremitting criticism and encourage— ment so necessary for the completion of this task. Forest H. C. Holman. Jr. East Lansing. Michigan April. 1971 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter I. THE BEGINNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 II. DUBOIS AS SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND SCHOLAR. . . 16 III. SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH.AT ATLANTA UNIVERSITY. . . . . . .... . . . . . . . 30 IV. DUBOIS AS FOUNDER OF THE N.A.A.C.P. AND EDITOR OF THE CRISIS MAGAZINE . . . . . . 41 v. THE CRITICAL PEN OF DUBOIS' ARTICLES AND EDITORIALS OF THE CRISIS. . . . . . . . . 55 VI. THE CRISIS: BLACK RADICALS AND WHITE LIBERALS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 ' BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 INTRODUCTION This paper is an analysis of the intellectual life of W. E. B. DuBois. Inherent in this discussion will be the basic factors which contributed to the paradoxes of which his intellectual life was based. This is by no means an exhaustive study of his entire life, but rather a study of the phiIOSOphy underlying the force that devel- Oped this man resulting first in the classic, The Phila- delphia Negro, then in his fourteen years at Atlanta Uni- versity, and finally, in his twenty-five years as editor of the Crisis magazine, which was the official literary organ of the N.A.A.C.P. The discussion here will emphasize how racism in the United States inspired the man, DuBois, to dedicate his life to the elimination of it through carefully de- vised, socially oriented, scientific research. And I hope to show how after three-quarters of his life had been totally dedicated to the ideal of constructive social propaganda that he was forced to resign his post as l director of research and publication (editor of the Crisis) for the N.A.A.C.P. as a rejected, dejected, and disillusioned scholar. The paper consists of the following chapters: I. THE BEGINNING II. DU BOIS AS SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND SCHOLAR III. SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH.AT ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IV. DU BOIS AS EDITOR OF THE CRISIS MAGAZINE V. THE CRITICAL PEN OF DU BOIS: ARTICLES AND EDITORIALS OF THE CRISIS VI. THE CRISIS: BLACK RADICALISM AND WHITE LIBERALS I. THE BEGINNING In 1868 New England was returning to normalcy after the fratricidal Civil War. It was a time to live and forget, to recapture the prewar values of thrift and industry, to revel in the strength of the newly formed Republican Party.1 This was the prevailing mood in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where W. E. B. DuBois was born on Febru— ary 23, 1868. His ancestry was a mixed one of African and European (French Huguenot) blood. On his maternal side, his mother, Mary Burghardt, was descended from a Slave who had been given his freedom after fighting for the colonial forces in the American Revolution.2 On his paternal side DuBois could trace his an- cestry back to a wealthy American of French Huguenot stock and a mulatto slave girl whom he met in the Bahamas. 1George R. Metcalf, Black Profiles: W. E. B. Du- Bois (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), p. 55. 21bid., p. 55. Their son, Alexander, DuBois' grandfather, resented the Anglo-Saxon insistence on Black separation or coloniza- tion. This resentment prompted DuBois to write years later that he had been born "with a flood of Negro blood, a strain of French, a bit of Dutch, but thank God: No Anglo-Saxon."3 Due to the fact that DuBois was born into the folds of Euro—American civilization, he was conditioned, depressed, and inspired by it. He found that he was an integral part of this civilization but more importantly, 'one of its rejected parts; one who expressed in his life a single whirlpool of social entanglement and inner psy— chological paradox, which seemed to him more significant for the meaning of the world and its related problems.4 All of the above factors would contribute to the many intellectual and psychological contradictions of his life. DuBois did little to create this problem. He Simply inherited it. With the skillful use of his pen and voice he attempted to explain and prophesy to those 3W. E. B. DuBois, Darkwater (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe Co., 1920), p. 9. 4'W. E. B. DuBois, Dusk of Dawn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), p. 3. who could or would listen. AS a result of attempting the above he dedicated his life to the solving of these prob- lems through the use of the scientific method. What was the social problem which, through the chances of birth and existence, became so peculiarly DuBois? At the very least, it was as old as human exist- ence yet he felt that in intellectual development in the nineteenth century, it was significantly new. Differences were ' Between men in their appearance, in their physique, in their thoughts and actions; differences so great and impelling that they thrust themselves forward upon the consciousness of all living things.5 Thus culture among human beings came to be built upon knowledge and recogni- tion of these differences.6 After the scientific method had been conceived in the seventeenth century, it came toward the end of the eighteenth century to be applied to man as he appeared, with no wide or intensive inquiry into what he had been or how he had lived in the past. However, the nineteenth century brought the revolution of conceiving the world 5Ibid.. p. 4. 6Ibid., p. 4. not as a static entity. but as one constantly changing; thus. the study of a man as a developing physical and social entity had begun. But DuBois felt that the European mind had clung to the erroneous idea that basic racial differences be- tween human beings had developed not simply from inertia and unconscious action. but from the fact that a tremen- dous capitalistic economic structure had been based upon racial differences between men. Instead he pointed out that this racial difference had been rationalized mainly into a difference of skin color. Thus. in the latter part of the nineteenth cen- tury. when DuBois had grown to manhood. the question and concept of color had become an abiding and unchanging fact due to a mass of self-conscious instincts and uncon— scious prejudices which had prematurely arranged themselves in terms of their self-defense. In this process of things. government. labor. organized religion and education came to be very shrewdly based and determined by the line of color. Therefore. the future of Western and Eastern 7Ibid.r p. 5. mankind was implicitly imbedded in the concepts of the race and color of men. All of the above factors forced DuBois to fashion a philOSOphy of life and work which would determine his life's actions. He thus perceived the social condition of race and color as a matter of education, knowledge, and scientific procedure in a world which had become sci- entific in concept. DuBois was not so naive as to believe that science alone could settle the matter of race, for he knew that at one time or another, force must also be utilized. He also believed that the Black world must fight for its freedom, but it was to fight with the truth, with the sword of the intrepid, uncompromising spirit, with boycotts. propa- ganda. and mob-like frenzy.8 DuBois' belief that racism in America would cease when it was revealed that it was based upon ignorance of the truth concerning Black peOple was not discarded by him until many years after. He held to the View, first proclaimed at twenty-five, that the pursuit of knowledge would lead to the raising of his race, until he saw that 81bid., p. 5. the stubborn white refusal to acknowledge the manhood of Black people was failing to yield to the steady stream of facts developed under his direction at Atlanta University. It was on his twenty-fifth birthday that he set for him- self the task of making a name in science and literature.9 By 1903, ten years hence, he had achieved both goals, having written The Suppression of the African Slave Trade as his doctoral dissertation at Harvard, and The Souls of Black Folk. He had achieved that which he had said Black people were capable of. Thus by 1903 DuBois had established himself as one of the most brilliant men in an America in which Black men were treated as less than men, and in the view of most white intellectuals, cer— tainly incapable of intellectual achievement of any par- ticular distinction. DuBois once said that had it not been for the race problem thrust upon him, he would have been an unquestion- ing worshiper at the shrine of the social order and eco- nomic Situation into which he was born. 9Sterling Stuckey, "W. E. B. DuBois as An Inspirer of Negro Youth," Freedomways, III (first quarter, 1965), 145. 10DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 27. But it was that part of the world which, to others, seemed perfect that he found most inequitable and wrong. At first, his criticism was confined to the relation of his people to the world movement for freedom. He was not questioning the world movement per se; or even what the white world was about. What he questioned was why he and other peOple like him, with ability and inspiration, were refused permission to be a part of that world. He was moved to say: "It was as though moving on a rushing ex— press, my main thought was as to the relations I had to other passengers on the express, and not to its rate of speed and its destination."11 DuBois thus felt that the most pressing need of Black people was leadership, trained, educated leadership. The duty of the educated Black was to minister unselfishly to the needs of his peOple. The doctors, lawyers, teachers-—the Black professionals--were to form what DuBois envisioned as "a talented tenth" upon whose gui— dance the masses of Black peOple could depend. The tal- ented tenth was to identify with the masses, to educate 11Ibid., p. 27. 10 them and to develop their special talents while leading them to freedom.12 From this theory, DuBois developed the philosophy that all Black peOple of ability Should storm the heights of intellectual achievement, not for the purpose of merely breathing the refined air of intel— lectualism, but for the purpose of becoming more capable of eventually solving their peOples' problems. Moreover, the main problem confronting DuBois was how Black peOple could logically benefit from democracy in America and be allowed to self-govern themselves. In simple terms, he asked how could his people be free and Black in a blatantly racist society. Most importantly, he was concerned how Black people could contribute and receive from America all that was useful and reject all that was not to their benefit. He did not despair that he and his people could not be like their white counter— parts. He thought it more desirable that they should aspire to a higher mission. This, then is the end of his striving; to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape death and isolation. and to husband and use his best powers. These powers. of body and mind. 12Stuckey, "W. E. B. DuBois as An Inspirer of Negro Yodth," p. 145. 11 have in the past been so wasted and dispersed as to have lost all effectiveness. The double- aimed struggle of the black artisan. on the one hand to escape white contempt for a nation of mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. and on the other hand to plough and nail and dig for a poverty-stricken horde. could only result in making him a poor craftsman. for he had but half a heart in either cause. It was from this philosophical base during the years 1883 to 1894 that DuBois experienced one of the most reveal— ing and stimulating forms of education ever attained by a Black American. From Fisk. in 1885. through Harvard. where he received his second A.B.. then the University of Berlin for graduate study and Harvard again where he won the Ph.D.. DuBois followed knowledge like a sinking star. He followed that star. not for its own sake. but for its logical pur— posiveness. Saunders Redding in his "Portrait of Dr. DuBois." in The American Scholar. observed that "the pur- suit has given him one of the most catholic minds of the . . . . . 1 century." He added. "It 18 not a difficult mind to know." At Harvard. DuBois studied psychology under Wil- 1iam James; ethics under Palmer. Royce and Santayana in 13W. E. B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folk (Green- wich: Fawcett Publications. 1967). p. 17. 4Saunders Redding. "Portrait of Dr. DuBois." American Scholar. XVIII (Winter. 1949). 93. 12 philosophy, Shaler in geology, and Albert Bushnell Hart in history. His philosophy teachers wished that he would undertake the serious study of philosophy; but while DuBois decided that philosophy would be his guide, it would not enable him to earn a living. He decided to stay in the social studies and to attempt to adopt the new sociological approach to the problems of Black people and their social uplift.15 It was thus at Harvard, under the influence of Royce and Santayana, that his intellec— tual curiosity turned from philosophy to American and EurOpean history, and eventually economics, government, and social problems. It was not until he was graduated from Harvard that he began to clearly understand the rela- tionships between economics and politics; the instrumental influence of man's efforts to earn a living upon all ef— forts.16 Unpon leaving America to study at the University of Berlin in Germany, DuBois began to see the problems of Black people and the political develOpment of Europe and 15Eugene C. Holmes, "W. E. B. DuBois--Philos- opher," Freedomways, III (first quarter, 1965), 42. l6DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 41. 13 and.America as one. From 1892 to 1894, through a grant from the Slater fund, he studied at the University of Berlin where he united his studies in history, economics, and politics under historian Gustav SchmOller. At this time, DuBois believed that through the pursuit of truth by investigation, race problems would have their solu- tions.17 He also inquired into the relativity of social problems in America and their worldwide implica- tions. From his childhood to his experience in EurOpe he had surveyed white people from a distance, but his friendly associations with Europeans caused him to review his ideas about racial barriers. Although he was still a Black American, never in his life could he forget his tremendous amount of formal education in America and Europe, and as a result he ceased to loathe others simply because they were white and vowed to utilize his composite knowledge toward the advancement of his peOple. While in Europe on his twenty-fifth birthday, DuBois paused and reflected back over his education as he looked forward to a career; he dedicated his library to his mother. In his diary he composed the following: 17Ibid., p. 42. 14 I am glad I am living, I rejoice as a strong man to run a race, and I am strong--is it ego- tism, is it assurance--or is it the silent call of the world spirit that makes me feel that I am royal and that beneath my sceptre a world of kings shall bow. The hot dark blood of that black forefather born king of men is beating at my heart, and I know that it is worth seeking--and heaven nor hell, God nor the devil shall turn me from my purpose till I die. I therefore take the work for the rise of the Negro people, taking for granted that their best develOpment means the best development of the world. These are my plans. To make a name in science to make a name in literature and thus to raise a visible empire in Africa thro' England, France or Germany. I wonder what will be the outcome? Who knows?18 After leaving the University of Berlin, after two years of study, DuBois returned to the United States as a Black man with a missionary sense of purpose. He had in mind the scientific study of Black Americans. The accum- ulation of adequate historical information for understand- ing Black peOple. DuBois thought, would pave the way for a more just and human social policy. DuBois returned from Germany in the summer of 1894, his education complete: he would receive the Ph.D. 18DuBois diary, February 23, 1893, DuBois papers cited in Francis L. Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), p. 89. 15 from Harvard in 1895. Aware of the fact that he possessed a phenomenally rare education, he proceeded to secure a job. He was given three offers and he accepted the chair in classics at Wilberforce University at Xenia, Ohio, at a salary of $800 per year. Even Lincoln Institute in Missouri offered $250 more and Booker T. Washington in- vited him to Tuskegee Institute to teach mathematics. But being true to himself, DuBois held to his original commitment and started on a career of teaching and re- search for sixteen years, which he would later characv terize as "my real life work."19 19DuBois, Darkwater, p. 20. II. DUBOIS AS SOCIAL SCIENTIST AND SCHOLAR As a professional, DuBois was quite conceited in his manner, and openly admitted that he was. He even wore the cane and gloves of the German student. His most re— deeming features were his infinite capacity for work and his terrible earnestness.1 Due to the academic atmosphere at Wilberforce, he quickly realized that his plan to free Black people through his use of the scientific approach could hardly be implemented. Due to his strong faith in knowledge and education, he became uneasy about his life program; he had the feeling that he was doing nothing di- rectly in the social sciences and Saw no immediate pros- pect.2 1W. E. B. DuBois, "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom," in Rayford W. Logan (ed.), What the Negro Wants (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1944), p. 43. 2Elliott M. Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois, A Study in Minority Group Leadership (Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn- sylvania Press, 1960), p. 28. 16 l7 DuBois Saw the truth as a tool in the scientific task of probing and assaying "the SCOpe of chance and un— reason in human action."3 He then applied scientific methods to the problem of race in an effort to furnish self-reSpect for Black peOple and legitimacy to the study of their culture. In less complicated terminology this condition was a matter of education; it was a matter of knowledge, one of scientific procedure within a world which had become scientific in concept. Thus after two years' struggle at Wilberforce, DuBois realized that it was not the place for him. Even though it had a fine tradition, a strategic position, and a large constituency, DuBois felt that its religious doging was too narrow and parochial in order for him to feel both academically free and comfortable. Moreover, its policies were too intertwined with intrigue, and worse, its future as an institution of higher learning was in grave doubt. The opportunity to study Black people and their lives as a sub-group came to DuBois in 1896, when the 3Holmes, "W. E. B. DuBois--PhiIOSOpher," p. 43. 18 Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Charles C. Harrison, offered him a special fellowship to conduct a research project in Philadelphia's Seventh Ward.4 This opportunity was a great influence on his career.5 The University of Pennsylvania now gave him the Opportunity of a research project in social science.6 Of this oppor— tunity, he said, "my vision is becoming clearer."7 The Negro problem was in his mind a matter of systematic in— vestigation and intelligent understanding. DuBois saw the problems of Black peOple as coming from ignorance on the part of whites, and only through systematic investi- gation and intelligent understanding could this problem be solved. The world was mistaken about its conception of race, he felt, because it Simply did not understand. The ultimate evil was stupidity. The cure for it was knowledge based on scientific investigation. 4DuBois, "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom," p. 43. 5Charles H. Wesley, "W. E. B. DuBois: The Histor- ian," Freedomwgys, III (first quarter, 1965), 3. 61bid., p. 63. 7 . DUBOIS, Dusk of Dawn, p. 52. 81bid., p. 58. 19 There must have been some opposition to his ap— pointment at Pennsylvania, for his invitation was not particularly cordial. He was offered a salary of $100 for a period limited to one year. Given no real academic standing, he was not even listed in the university cata- log. Actually, his title as designated by the university was "Investigator of the Social Conditions of The Colored Race in This City."9 The fact that he was designated as.an Pinvesti— gator," although a Ph.D., from Harvard, made no difference to him. He had his opportunity and he would use it ef- fectively and efficiently, for here was the chance to study an historical group of Black folk and to Show ex- actly what their place was in the community. The result was The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.10 DuBois did not turn entirely from history to so- ciology.ll He proposed to find out what the problems were in the area of Philadelphia's Seventh Ward and why they 9DuBois, "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom," p. 44. 10 . . . Wesley, "W. E. B. DuBOIS: The Historian," 63. llIbid., p. 63. 20 existed. Since he distrusted the research methods then in use he devised his own. He studied it personally not by proxy: using no canvassers he himself interviewed 5,000 persons. He also gathered vital demographic information from the city's census tracts, and from public and private libraries. He also mapped, codified, and classified the Seventh ward. In doing so, he compiled two centuries of the history of the Negro in Philadelphia and in the Seventh Ward. The Philadelphia Negro is a large volume filled with the theories that DuBois develOped from the study of the Seventh ward. He was concerned not only with the types of jobs that the peOple held, but also with their inability to be admitted into labor unions which excluded them from many good jobs. When it came to money or the lack of it, he said: "The Negro has much to learn of the Jew and Italian, as to living within his means and saving every penny from excessive and hasteful expenditures."1 He aCcused the various churches of intrigueeand extrava- gance. He also called the state and local governments 12W. E. B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro (New York: Schocken Books, 1967), pp. 368-384. 21 corrupt, and argued that the Negroes simply reflected their surroundings when they were "the tools of the party machine."13 DuBois' theme of a Black social system within the larger American context placed particular emphasis on the fact that whites had a clear right to expect Blacks to Solve their own problems: although he appealed for finan- cial aid, he wanted no interference with his program of racial autonomy. This theme of Black co-operation was to recur throughout his later studies and essays and ‘would eventually lead to his resignation from the . N.A.A.C.P. as editor of the Crisis. He declared that Black peOple should recognize that crime within the com- munity was a meanace to civilized peOple, and should take special pains to improve family life. He contended that Black people of Philadelphia should spend less time com- plaining about the lack of opportunities and more time in emphasizing edifying activities such as lectures and physical hygiene.. DuBois felt that social services in Philadelphia, such as day nurseries, serving schools, mothers' meetings, 13Ibid., p. 384. 22 and recreational facilities should be organized and main— tained by Black people; it was also apparent to him that they should support their own savings and loan associa- tions, newspapers, stores, unions, and industrial enter— prises. The hope of the race has "the mastering of the art of social organized life." The foresight and dilli- gence of the Black upper—class was important for this accomplishment; it was also most imperative that whites recognize these leaders and accord them status and power: The courtesies of life can be exchanged even across the color line without any danger to the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon or the social ambition of the Negro. Without doubt social differences are facts not fancies and cannot be swept aside: but they hardly need to be looked upon as excuses for downright meanness and incivility. At this point in his career, DuBois seemed like Booker T. Washington. He did not manifest the radicalism of his later years. He was calm, patient, and deliberate rather than loud and intemperate. He believed that changes would come inevitably but slowly. The Philadelphia Negro was a difficult task, but it was completed by the spring of 1898 and published a 14Ibid., p. 397. 23 year later. It numbered nearly a thousand pages. DuBois was not painfully aware that merely being born in a group did not give one complete knowledge of it.15 He confessed that he had learned more from Negroes in Philadelphia than he had taught them concerning the Negro problem.16 In 1899. in a public session of the American Academy. affil— iated with the University of Pennsylvania. he proposed to attack this problem through systematic and continuous study. In addition he appealed to Harvard. Columbia. and Pennsylvania to take up the work.17 DuBois was. of course. ignored. For twenty-five years not a single firstrrate college in America undertook to give any considerable attention to the American Negro.18 Since past studies on Black people had been un- systematic. incomplete. uncritical. and biased. DuBois suggested his people Should be studied historically. 5DuBois. "My Evolving Program for Negro Free- dom." p. 45. 16Ibid.. p. 45. 17Ibid.r p. 45. lerid.o p. 45. 24 statistically, anthrOpologically, and sociologically. The past of Blacks could be reconstructed through the collection of colonial statutes, congressional reports, state reports, and personal narratives. Statistics could be accumulated on age—sex structures, conjugal conditions, and wages. An exploration of the effects of amalgamation upon the two races was necessary. Knowledge was also needed on the extent of geographical influences. Evi— dences of group life could be obtained from books, music, folklore, and from an intensive study and survey of the social institutions of Black people. Since the effect of anti—Black prejudice and discrimination was an impor- tant unknown, it was important to investigate its relation to the race's mental, moral, and physical development. DuBois' study of the Philadelphia Negro was so thorough that it has withstood the criticism of the last seventy years. Notwithstanding its effects, it was as complete a study as could have been undertaken at that time. It revealed the Negro group not as an inert, sick body of criminals but as the product of a long historic develOpment.19 19Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study In Minority Group Leadership, p. 36. 25 This chapter has Shown that the early intellectual life of DuBois saw not only the beginning of his career as a scholar and social scientist but also the paradoxes which would plague him the rest of his life. In The Phil- adelphia Negro, he sought to prove through scientific analysis that his people possessed the characteristics necessary for developing their own culture, and he even favored a separate racial social system. Yet he repudi— ated the color line and wanted to remove all racial bar- riers. As a young man, he attempted to resolve the problem through arguing that Black peOple should organize among themselves to prepare for an integrated America. Since the sting of racism made him feel emotionally un- safe, it was only when among his own people that he felt totally at ease. Throughout his long career, he was to be pushed and pulled by this paradox.20 Black America intrigued and disgusted DuBois. He was disgusted by the disorganization, ignorance, and 20Two vieWpoints relevant to the paradox of being a Black American can be found in Lerone Bennett's "The Politics of the Outsider," Negro Digest, XVII (July, 1968), 4-35. Also, Harold Cruse, The Crisis of The Negro Intel- lectual (New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1967), pp. 12-13. ' 26 immorality which he saw, and he impartially condemned Black politicians, ministers, educators, and the masses. But from the contributions of these same people he was determined to contruct a worthy way of life for them. Work, culture, liberty, all these we need not singly-but together, not successively but to- gether, each growing and siding each, and all striving toward that vaster ideal that Swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the unifying ideal of race; the ideal of fostering and develOping the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American soil two world-races may give each to the other those characteris— tics both so badly lack.21 This plan was to utilize the Black university as the center of his work: the insitution was also to serve as a training ground for a Black elite, and to sponsor sys- tematic social research (providing the basis for social action). He exhorted Black people to design and establish their own social services, unions, and industrial enter- prises under the exclusive direction of "Black Captains of Industry."22 21DuBois, Souls of Black Folk, p. 22. 22DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, pp. 60—62. 27 Before DuBois had finished his work at Philadelphia, Atlanta University, under the presidency of Dr. Horace Bumstead, asked him to come there and take charge of the work in sociology, and of the hew conferences which Were being inaugurated to discuss the problems facing Black urban America. It would be at the end of his first stay at Atlanta that DuBois would realize the futility of scientific inquiries and that their effects upon the gen— eral population would require more time than his intel— lectual patience required.23 Now having surmised that racial prejudice was caused by ignorance, he proceeded to publish articles of constructive social prOpaganda for many of the nation's magazines.24 His separatist theme of Black nationalism was evident throughout these writings. However, by the turn of the century a decided shift in ideological empha— sis became self—evident and he began to stress the theme of Civil Rights. He also began to stress social-action tactics; he began to address himself to whites, in the 23Ibid., p. 56. 2 . . . . . 4Rudw1ck, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership, p. 36. 28 pages of aplentic Monthly. World's ngk, and the Ipdgr pendent, telling them they did not know very much about his race, and that study, on their part, would confirm the damage that racism had done to his people. He ob- served that slavery had made large numbers of Black people careless and dependent and that the poorer Negroes were taught during the reconstruction period that crooked pol- itics represented a necessary source of income.25 Against the argument that Black people were a "ciminal" race, DuBois replied that "the first and greatest cause of Negro crime in the South was the convict—léase system of Georgia, Arkansas, and Mississippi, in partic- ular, thus crime was a "symptom of negative social con- ditions." Therefore, DuBois reasoned that Black people could hardly place their faith in a law which permitted lynchers to go unpunished.26 Moreover, the paradox in- volved in DuBois' attempt to develop the race as a sep- arate cultural group, and at the Same time, integrate its fir? 25W. E. B. DuBois, glack Reconstruction in Amer- ica: 41860-1880 (New York: The World Publishing Co., 1968). p. 121. 26Rudwick, W. E, B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership, p. 36. 29 members in the social fabric of the United States, was ever present.27 He learned to compartmentalize and move freely, between his two contradictory goals.28 In the fall of 1897, DuBois entered his life plan at Atlanta University. 27DuBois, Souls of Black Folk, pp. 17-18. Also, Harold Cruse, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual (New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1967), p. 451. 28‘W. E. B. DuBois, "The Spawn of Slavery," Mis- siongry Review of the World, XXIV (October, 1901), 737. III. SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH AT ATLANTA UNIVERSITY The main significance of DuBois' work at Atlanta University, during the years 1897 to 1910, was the devel- opment of a program of study on the problems affecting .Black Americans designed to stretch over the span of a century.1 This program sprang from a plan conceived by George Bradford of Boston, one of the trustees, to estab- lish for Atlanta University a field of specialization comparable to the work Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes were doing in agriculture. At the Hampton and Tuskegee conferences, there was an annual gathering of farmers and agricultural experts who through speeches and group dis- cussions encouraged and taught Black farmers the latest methods of farming. Bradford's idea was to establish at Atlanta a similar conference especially devoted to the problems of urban Blacks.2 1DuBois, "My Evolving Plan for Negro Freedom," 2Ibid., p. 46. 30 31 For the Atlanta program, DuBois conceived a series of investigations in Black social conditions, primarily for scientific ends: he put no Special emphasis on social reform. The result was an increasing emphasis on the collection of data on Black Americans.3 The aims of the Atlanta studies were as follows: This study is a further carrying out of a plan of social study by means of recurring decen- nial inquiries into the same set of human problems. The object of these studies is pri— marily scientific-~a careful search for truth conducted as thoroughly, broadly, and honestly as the material resources and mental equipment at command will allow; but this is not our sole object: we wish not only to make the truth clear but to present it in such shape as will encourage and help social reform.4 The published results of these studies have ever since been used and quoted in America, EurOpe, Africa, and Asia. As time passed it happened that many efforts of uplift were, in fact, based on the Atlanta studies; notably the kindergarten system of the City of Atlanta, white as well as Black; the National Negro Business League (under the tutelage of Booker T. Washington); and various other projects to better health conditions, and. 3Ibid., p. 46. 4DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 64. 32 to combat crime. Nevertheless, the studies increasingly became a source of general information and a basis for further study, rather than an organ of social reform.5 In regards to the efficacy of the Atlanta studies, DuBois said: The proverbial visitor from Mars would have assumed as elemental a study in America of American Negroes--as physical specimens: bio— logical growths; as a field of investigation in economic development from slave to free labor, a psychological laboratory in human reaction toward caste and discrimination; as an unique case of physical and cultural in- termingling. These and a dozen other subjects of scientific interest would have struck the man from Mars as eager lines of investigation for American social scientists. He would have been astounded to learn that the only institutions in America in 1910 with any such program of study was At- lanta University; where on a budget of $500.00 a year, including salaries, cost of publication, investigation and annual meetings, we were es- saying this pioneer work.6 For thirteen years, DuBois and his staff completed a series_of studies. Only partially conclusive they were unlike any other attempt of the sort anywhere else in the nation, for they gained attention throughout the world. 5DuBois, "My Evolving Plan for Negro Freedom," 6Ibid., p. 65. l) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 33 The ten year cycle was as follows: 1896——Mortality Among Negroes 1897--Social and Physical Conditions of Negroes in The Cities 1898--Some Efforts of Negroes for Social Better— ment 1899--The 1900-—The 1901--The l902—-The l903-—The Negro in Business College Bred Negro Negro Common School Negro Artisan Negro Church 1904-—Notes on Negro Crime 1905-—A Select Bibliography of the American Negro.7 In 1906, DuBois planned a more logical division of subjects but was unable to do so, due to a lack of funds. However, he did do one set of studies on Health and Phys- ique, Economic Co—Operation, and The Negro American family. He was also able to complete a second group of studies on The College Bred Negro, The Negro Common School, The Negro Artisan, and Morals and Manners Among Negroes. A total of 2,172 pages was published under the title: The Atlanta 7 Ibid., p. 65. 34 Studies, which formed a current encyclopedia on the Amer— ican Negro problem.8 The studies, with all their imperfections, were widely distributed in the libraries of the world and used by scholars. It may be said, without undue boasting, that between 1896 and 1920, there was no study of the race problem in America which did not depend in some degree upon the investigations by DuBois, at Atlanta University. DuBois' association with the Atlanta conferences continued from 1897 to 1914; during that period he also supervised the preparation of 16 monographs. Since the inquiries were made by unpaid individuals on a part—time basis, DuBois was somewhat limited in the breadth and SCOpe of these projects. In pursuing different areas of the lives of Black people, he wanted each monograph to have a "logical connection" with subsequent ones so that a "comprehensive whole" would gradually evolve.10 The 8DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 65. 9Ibid., p. 65. 10Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership, p. 42. 35 Atlanta monographs were given a generally favorable re— ception.ll The Outlook commented on The Negro Artisan: No student of the race problem, no person who would think or write upon it intelligently, can afford to be ignorant of the facts brought out in the Atlanta series of sociological studies of the conditions and the progress of the Negro . . . . The hand of the skilled and thorough investigator is conspicuous through- out.12 In 1904, a review in Publications of the Southern History Association remarked: The work done under the direction of the At— lanta Conference is entitled to the respectful and thoughtful consideration of every man in- terested in any aspect of the life of the A American Negro. The guiding Spirit of this work is Dr. DuBois, and he is entitled to the utmost credit for what he has accomplished in the face of the many obstacles confronting his undertaking.13 Of course there were the expected negative reviews. The Political Science Quarterly gave comments on The Negro Church: Mr. DuBois' theories and opinions may be correct; they are worthy of attention; but they are not 11Ibid., p. 42. lzggfilggk, LXXXIII (N.M., 1903), 593. 13Publications of The Southern History Associa- tion, VIII (N.M., 1904), 593. 36 well supported by any known facts, nor by the mass of material here collected on himself and his fellow workers. Indeed the effect of the intermingling of facts and theories in this monograph is somewhat confusing and con— tradictory.l4 Despite the admitted deficiencies in these studies, DuBois had adhered to his early goal of scientific inves— tigation in measuring the extent of prejudice in causing the Negro problem, as differentiated from the Negroes' own cultural shortcomings.15 His contributions were a monument to social science. Therefore, DuBois' Atlanta studies represent his efforts to introduce systematic in— duction into the field of race relations when other men . l were speculating about Black people. DuBois, through the use of his own data, repudi- ated many of the negatively oriented vieWpoints held by many Black and white citizens of the era in which the studies were written. It was accepted, for example, that Blacks were lynched because of well—grounded facts of 14Political Science Quarterly, XIX (N.M., 1904), 702. 15W. E. B. DuBois, "The Study of Negro Problems," Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, XI (January 1898), 7. 16Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study In Minority Group Leadership, p. 49. 37 "alleged or attempted" rape. DuBois recorded that in less than one quarter of a long series of lynchings the victims had been charged with sexual assault.17 Utilizing compar— ative statistics, DuBois clearly demonstrated that South— ern Black children were the recipients of inferior educa- tions. This was especially true when consideration was given to such factors as the length of the school term, the amount of school appropriations, the salaries of teachers, and the value of school property.18 The Atlanta scholar also attacked the widely pre— judiced View that the continent of Africa existed as a cultural void. He presented a historical version of the complex, cultural nature of Africa, and widely quoted the works of'anthropologist Franz Boas to substantiate his facts about "Negro Mediterranean culture."19 DuBois also 17W. E. B. DuBois and Augustus Dill, Morals and Manners AmongiNegro Americans (Atlanta: Atlanta Univer— sity Press, 1914). p. 44. 18W. E. B. DuBois, The Negro Common School (At— lanta: Atlanta University Press, 1902), pp. 89—92. Also see, W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1890 (paperback edition; Cleveland: World Publish— ing Company, 1935), Ch. 15. 19DuBois and Dill, Manners Among Negro Americans, p. 67. 38 showed that the develOpmental processes of Africa became stunted not because of the inherent inferiority of the peOple, but as a result of EurOpean interference. More- over, DuBois presented the African peOple as helpless victims whose vast potentialities for growth had been hitherto ignored or ridiculed.20 From all of this painstaking work, DuBois was understandably disappointed to realize that his work in the Atlanta publications was not receiving the needed financial support; far from being able to command in— creased revenue for better methods of investigation, President Bumstead found it increasingly difficult to solicit sufficient funds to enable DuBois to carry on his work. DuBois thought that his presentations were of scientific significance because they demonstrated that Black peOple were not all a homogeneous mass. However, Since he believed that racism was rooted in ignorance and prejudice, he sought to use truth as proof that neither race nor color determined the limits of a man's capacity. DuBois was not sufficiently freudian to 201bid.. p. 67. 39 perceive how little human action is based on reason; nor did he comprehend classical Marxism well enough to fully grasp and appreciate the economic foundations of human history. In 1904, the lynching of Sam Hose, in Atlanta, Georgia, caused DuBois to seriously reassess his role as a scholarly social scientist. There were two basic rea- sons which eventually disrupted his work. First he felt that he could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while his people were being murdered and starved; second he realized that there was not the demand for his kind of work that he had originally seen. He had idealistically regarded it as a matter of course that the world wanted to learn the truth and if the truth was sought with even approximate accuracy, and painstaking devotion, the world would gladly support the effort. In this regard, he wrote: "This was of course, but a young man's idealism, not by any means false; but also universally true."21 Therefore, as a result of a series of professional, political and personal conflicts in regards to his work at Atlanta University, DuBois resigned his position in 21DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 68. 40 1910, and forthwith accepted the position as Director of Publications and Research for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. His new position with the N.A.A.C.P. would become the third plateau in his long career as "Master Propagandist" for the libera— tion of his people. IV. DUBOIS AS FOUNDER OF THE N.A.A.C.P. AND EDITOR OF THE CRISIS MAGAZINE The Niagara Movement,forerunner of the N.A.A.C.P., was an organization of professional men founded during the summer of 1905 near Buffalo, New York. The founda— tion convention, attended by twenty-nine persons from fourteen states, named the organization after the nearby Niagara falls. The main organizer of this movement was W. E. B. DuBois.l The organizers of the Niagara Movement felt that many efforts at group action among Black people had failed because they lacked a likeminded membership with unity and definiteness of aim; thus, the Niagara movement was limited to educated professional and busi- ness persons.2 The organization's declaration of prin- ciples made it clear that what it sought was political, 1Earl E. Thorpe, The Mind of the Negro: An In- tellectgal History of Afro—Americans (Baton Rouge: Ortlieb Press, 1961), p. 384. 21bid., p. 384. 41 42 social, and civil equality for the race. In 1906 the Niagara Movement met at Harper's Ferry, at Boston in 1907, and Oberlin, Ohio, in 1908. The next year it merged with the N.A.A.C.P., which was incorporated in 1911.3 In its origins the N;A.A.C.P. represented a union of most of the Negro leadership involved in the Niagara Movement and white people of generally similar class and professional backgrounds and ideologies. The immediate stimulant for the white people involved was an anti-Negro outbreak in the summer of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois. This led to an article, "Race War In The South," by a leading newspaper publisher, William English Walling, in The Independent of September 3, 1908. Here Walling called for a "powerful body of citizens" to assist Black people in their efforts to achieve "absolute political and social . 4 equality." Mary White Ovington, a Sodial worker and a writer on Black people, wrote to William English Walling 3Ibid., p. 384. Further details on the founding of The Niagara Movement can be found in Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of The Negro People in the United States, Vol. II (New York: The Citadel Press, 1968). 897. 4Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of The Negro People in the United States, Vol. II (New York: The Citadel Press, 1968), 915. 43 and this resulted in her meeting with him and Dr. Henry Moskowitz in New York in January, 1919. It was then de- cided to issue, on February 12, 1909, a call for a meeting on the question of civil rights for Black Americans. Oswald Garrison Villard, William Lloyd Garrison's grand- son, president of the New York Evening Post Company, wrote this call which was signed by fifty-three peOple, includ- ing six Black people. William L. Bulkley, a school principal of New York, Mrs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett of Chi- cago, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois of Atlanta, Rev. Francis J. Grimke of Washington, Bishop Alexander Walters and Dr. J. Milton Waldron 6f WaShington. Among the white signers, in addition to the three already named, were Jane Addams, John Dewey, William Dean Howells, Lincoln Steffens, Florence Kelley, Charles Edward Russell, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, and Mary E. Woolley.5 From the beginning the leaders had hOped to acquaint the executive and legislative branches of the government with the association's aims and objectives so that it might be possible to exert political influences 51bid., p. 915. 44 on behalf of the Negro. By holding some of these meetings in white churches and issuing tickets, Northern congress- men and their wives might be attracted. Moreover, it was hoped that President Taft might be persuaded to ad— dress the conference, although little was expected of Taft other than he would attract nationwide attention to the conference. Thus was held a national conference on the Negro question in New York City, May 31 to June 1, 1909 at which in turn a committee of forty was formed.7 And in 1910, in New York, there was organized a permanent body named the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Its first chairman was the distinguished Boston attorney, Moorfield Storey (formerly Charles Sumner's private secretary and a leader of the anti-Imperialist League, past President of the American Bar Association), and W. E. B. DuBois was named original Director of Pub- licity and Research. In November 1910, under DuBois' 6Charles Flint Kellogg, N.A.A.C.P.: A History of The National Association for The Advancement of Colored People, Vol. I (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), p. 31. 7 . . Aptheker, A Documentary History of The Negro People in the United States, p. 915. 45 editorship, the first issue of the N.A.A.C.P. organ, the Crisis appeared. At the first conference, May 31 to June 1, 1909, DuBois had named disfranchisement in the South as a major barrier to Negro advancement.9 Disfranchisement of Black people was in large measure brought about as a result of conflict between the conservative Democratic leadership of the South and the Populists, who represented the resurgent farmers.10 The POpulists attempted to convince the Black and white masses that they were bound together by common economic and political problems, and sought Black coopera- tion and support at the polls. To fight the POpulist movement, which threatened the weakened conservative su- premacy, conservatives resorted to trickery, fraud, and violence.11 Both sides competed for Black support. 81bid., p. 915. 9Kellog, N.A.A.C.P., p. 35. W. E. B. DuBois, Erg— ceedings of The National Negro Conference, 1909, pp. 21- 22. 10 . . C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South 1877- 1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951). PP. 264-70. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 56-62. lWoodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, pp. 58-59. 46 Conservatives finally broke up the POpulist attempt at interracial cooperation by appealing to racism and to the argument that once Black peOple were disfranchised, pol- itics could be purified, and an effective two party system would become possible in the South.12 To avoid extralegal methods of disfranchisement, such as violence, intimidation, and the manipulation of the technical requirements of registration, the conserva— tives decided to amend state constitutions to accomplish Negro disfranchisement. It was first necessary to over- come the opposition of many upland whites, who feared they would also be disfranchised in the process. Therefore, in addition to poll taxes, residence requirements, prop— erty qualifications, and literacy tests, all of which could be used to disqualify lower-class whites as well as Negroes, certain loopholes were provided, such as the ability to read or give a reasonable interpretation of the federal or state constitution. The most widely used device was the "grandfather clause," which gave the vote to persons who had voted before 1867 and to their 12Woodward, Origins of the New South, pp. 332—27, 337, 347-48; Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, pp. 63—65. 47 descendants. This technique allowed whites who could not meet educational or other qualifications to be admitted to the suffrage. At the same time it systematically de- prived Negroes of the vote. By 1910, with the rapid spread of the white primary in the South, which excluded Negroes on the legal theory that the Democratic Party was a private organization and could formulate and enforce its own rules of admission, Negro disfranchisement was virtually complete.13 Upon arriving in New York to assume his duties as Director of Publications and Research for the N.A.A.C.P. DuBois was told by the treasurer, Oswald Garrison Villard: "I don't know who is going to pay your salary; I have no money."14 Undaunted by this dramatic revelation, DuBois worked very diligently, and by November, 1910 he had been successful in getting the first issue of the Crisis off the press. DuBois viewed the appearance of the Crisis as arriving at the right moment; thus enabling its phenom- enal success as the house organ of the N§A.A.C.P. From one thousand issues sold at its first publication, the ._Yv 13Kellog, N.A.A.C.P., p. 36. 14DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 225. 48 magazine's circulation increased to one thousand per month, until by 1918, over a hundred thousand copies had been published and sold.15 As editor of the Crisis, DuBois maintained a considerably wide margin of editorial . l6 . . independence. Moreover, the CrISIs was a separate de- partment in the N.A.A.C.P. and came to be recognized as . . 17 . . . . "DuBOis' Domain." With the CrISis, DuBOis essayed a new role of interpreting to the world the hindrances and aspirations of American Negroes. His older program of "scientific social study" was serving to support his new editorial contentions with Scientific facts from current reports and observations or historic reference; his writ- ings for the Crisis were thus reinforced by lecturing and . . 18 his facts were increased by travel. In November 1913, at the earnest solicitation of DuBois, Augustus G. Dill, who had succeeded DuBois at lsIbid., p. 226. 16Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study In Minority Group Leadership, p. 151. 17Ibid., p. 151. Also see, Kellogg, N.A.A.C.P., pp. 50-65. 8DuBois, "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom," p. 56. 49 Atlanta University. left his academic post at Atlanta and came to New York as business manager of the Crisis. From then until early in 1928. Dill gave to his work and DuBois his utmost devotion; and to him was due much of the maga- zine's phenomenal business success. In five years. the Crisis became self-supporting. and on January 1. 1916. with its annual income increasing from $6.500 in 1911 to $24.000 at the end of 1915. Its total income during these years was over $84.000; it circulated nearly a million and a half copies. net paid circulation. It reached every state in the union plus Europe. Africa. and the South Seas. With this organ of propaganda and defense. and with its legal bureau. lecturers. and writers. the N.A.A.C.P. was able to organize one of the most effec- tive assaults of liberalism upon prejudice and reaction that the modern world had seen.20 Although the Crisis was the property of the N.A.A.C.P.. DuBois was determined that it would reflect his own views; he had always felt that the great moral and social questions affecting the Negro American must 9 1 DuBois. Dusk of Dawn. p. 226. 20Ibid.. p. 227. 50 be faced fairly and honestly, carefully discussed and a method of solution sought. On the other hand, he felt that free speech and sincere agitation had been the path whereby salvation had been sought by the modern world.21 Moreover, DuBois felt that because the Board of Directors of the N.A.A.C.P. was composed of varied personalities, it would not be able to express a set of well-defined Opinions on specific ideas and issues. He suggested that when the board chose to take certain positions, it could state them in annual resolutions or in the N.A.A.C.P. section of the Crisis. He argued that if the magazine had not discussed his own ideas in a pro- vocative fashion, it would have been unread and of little influence. Throughout his extensive career, his concep- tions of intellectual and professional insularity brought DuBois into many conflicts with the board members of the NQA.A.C.P. In defense of the Crisis to the N.A.A.C.P. Board of Directors, DuBois remarked: 21W. E. B. DuBois, from Progeedingp of the Na— tional Negro Confeppnpe, 1909, p. 223; cited in Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority GroungeaderShip, p. 126. 51 No magazine in this country addresses so varied an audience. We are talking at once to edu— cated hypercritical reformers of refined taste to whom a mistake in color scheme, or in Eng— lish usage, or in character of advertisement seems a crime; at the same time we are Speak- ing to people who can read and write. Between these we run the whole gamut of partially edu- cated unthinking people, of well educated peOple with undeveloped tastes, of practical businessmen, etc. It goes without saying, that the Crisis must: 1) give reliable information, 2) be attractive in make—pp, 3) be frank and fearless in dis- cussion. The object of the gripip was to set forth the above factors in such manner that they would show the danger of racial prejudice particularly toward Black people. It assumed the name, Crisis, because its edi— torial board believed that the period of time was a cru- cial one in the history and advancement of men,* and accepted the suggestion of Mary White Ovington that they use the title of a poem by James Russell Lowell entitled, "The Present Crisis." It was the belief of the editor, 22Third Annual Report of the N.A.A.C.P., 1912, p. 15, cited in Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study ip Minority Gropp,Leader§hip, p. 152. *The Crisis editorial board included: 0. G. Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles E. Russell, Kelly Miller, Wil- 1iam S. Braithwaite, and Mary D. Maclean. 52 DuBois, that catholicity and tolerance. reason and fore— bearance could make the old dream of human brotherhood approach realization while bigotry and prejudice empha—_ sized race consciousness and would repeat the awful hiS-, tory of the contact of nations and groups in the past. It was thus the editor's purpose to strive for a higher and broader vision of peace and goodwill.23 The policy of the Crisis was simple and well— defined: It will first and foremost be a newspaper; it will record important happenings and movements in the world which bear on the great problem of interracial relations, and especially those with the Negro-American. Secondly, it will be a review of opinion and literature, recording briefly books, articles, and important expres- sions of opinion in the white press on the race problem. Thirdly, it will publish a few short articles. Finally, its editorial page will stand for the rights of men, irrespective of color or race, for the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals. The magazine will be the organ of no clique or party, and will avoid personal rancor of all sorts. In the absence of proof to the contrary it will assume honesty of purpose on the part of all men North and South, white and Black.24 23_C_ri_s_i_s_. I (November, 1910), 125. 24Qri§i§, I (November, 1910), 125. 53 DuBois attempted to cultivate reader interest by publishing in the Crisis a series of articles which his reading audience would appreciate. Among the various sections were: "Colored High School," ”Women's Clubs," "The Colored College Athlete," and "Harriet Beecher Stowe's Personal Knowledge of the Negro Character." Another fea- ture was "Along the Color Line," which like a small town newspaper contained news items concerning a large number of Black people. There were also three special issues in June and January containing the names, pictures, and spe— cific undergraduate and/br graduate degrees received by Black college graduates and their respective colleges. The most important section within the Crisis was the "Opinion" section. The "Opinion" was the magazine's edi- torial wherein DuBois wrote on the subjects and topics which he felt necessary to discuss. Moreover, the "Opin— ion" was the heart and soul of the Crisis. The Crisis also contained an N.A.A.C.P. section wherein important addresses and reports of the Associa— tion were printed. The magazine's audience was advised, "What to Read," among recent books and articles, and, 54 also short biographies of prominent Black personalities were presented in "Men of the Month."25 The advertisements reflected the journal's aspir— ing supporters. There was an "Education Directory" (Har- vard, Atlanta, Wilberforce, Fisk, and Lincoln Universities: and Wiley, BiShOps, and Claflin Colleges, along with those of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes). Thus nearly all of the readers of the Crisis possessed a reverence and regard for its policy, its content, and its editor. Some of DuBois' most prolific and prodigious writings appeared in his monthly editorials in the Crisis. His editorials, with their brevity, luster, and push, are his lasting literary monument.26 25Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group,Leadership, pp. 152—153. 26Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois:r Negro Leader in A Time of Crisis, pp. 156—157. V. THE CRITICAL PEN OF DUBOIS' ARTICLES AND EDITORIALS OF THE CRISIS An editor's prerogative is to comment upon any— thing he considers pertinent to his readers, and he is assumed to be an authority on countless subjects. More commonly than not he draws unequivocal conclusions and gives unlimited amounts of advice. DuBois asserted all of these occupational rights, and he pontificated monthly on any area of Black-white relations which interested or . l . . . . . annoyed him. DuBOis' comments in the CrISis antagonized and pleased both individuals and groups.2 Let us examine some of his editorial reactions during his early years of intellectual productivity. In the November, 1910 issue of the Crisis, DuBois called for resistance against the attempts which were then being made by whites in various cities outside the lBroderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader In A Time of Crisis, p. 153. 2Kellogg, N.A.A.C.P., p. 97. 55 56 South to segregate integrated schools.3 In another edi- torial, he was defensive of the policy of the Crisis. He said, "this is a newspaper, it tries to tell the truth. It will not consciously exaggerate in any way, but its whole reason for being is the revelation of the facts of racial antagonism now in the world."4 DuBois encouraged "enterprising" artisans and professionals to migrate to the Northwest and he volunteered to answer all inquiries about the area.5 In another editorial, he wrote: "Evolution is evolving in the millennium, but one of the unescapable factors in evolution are the men who hate wickedness and Oppression with perfect hatred, who will not equivocate, will not excuse, and will be heard."6 He felt that the Crisis would stand and cry in the four corners of the world, claiming no man as its friend who would not stand and cry with it. The Crisis editor regarded himself as the one most qualified to articu— late the probelms of Black people through the 3Crisis, I (November, 1910), 10. 4Crisis, IV (February, 1912), 109. 5Crisis, V (February, 1913), 236. 6Crisis, VIII (May, 1914), 26. 57 pages of the Crisis. In reference to the "procession of freedom," he wrote: For twenty-five years we have let the proces- sion go by until the systematic denial of manhood rights to Black men in America is the crying disgrace of the century. And yet for the giant mass of 10,000,000 Americans of Negro descent these things are true: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) We are denied education. We are driven out of the Church of Christ. We are forced out of hotels, theatres and public places. We are publicly labeled like dogs when we travel; We can seldom get decent employment. We are forced down to the lowest wage scale. We pay the highest rent for the poorest homes. We cannot buy property in decent neighbor- hoods. We are held up to ridicule in the press and on the platform and stage. We are disfranchised. We are taxed without representation. We are denied the right to choose our friends or to be chosen by them, but must publicly denounce ourselves as social pa- riahs or be suggestively kicked by the survey. In law and custom our women have no rights which a white man is bound to respect. We cannot get justice in the courts. We are lynched with impunity. 58 16) We are publicly, continuously, and shame- fully insulted from the day of our birth to the day of our death.7 His verbal lashings at white peOple were quite sonorous and frequent. At times he attacked the logic of the Southern prison system. In waterloo, Kentucky, the enterprising chief of police is arresting all unemployed Negroes and putting them in jail, thus securing their labor for the state at the cheapest possible figure. This bright idea did not originate in Kentucky. It is used throughout the South and strong sermons and editorials are written against "lazy" Negroes. Despite this there are people in this country who wonder at the increase of "crime" among colored peOple. During the years 1913 to 1915, there were fierce struggles of policy between DuBois and members of the N.A.A.C.P. board.9 The issues were very clear. How re— sponsible to the board was DuBois to be, and how much influence, in fact, was he to have? The leadership of the Association felt that it had a more clearer compre— hension of the needs of the N.A.A.C.P. than did DuBois. 7Crisis, VIII (May, 1915), 25. 8Crisis, IX (January 1915), 132. 9Kellogg. N.A.A.C.P.. pp. 96—100. 59 As Chairman of the board, Villard believed that he had the right to control the editorial policy of the Crisis. Being a member of the board also, DuBois refused to con— sider himself as Villard's subordinate, and demanded in- dependence of editorial action. Therefore Villard re- signed his post as chairman of the board in late 1913 and became treasurer and chairman of the finance com- mittee. In spite of past differences, DuBois complimented Villard in the Crisis, saying that no other person had done more for the new abolition movement: "He took it when it was nothing but an idea and left it with a nation- wide movement, with 24 branches and 3,000 members, out of debt, aggressive and full of faith."10 DuBois also had an encounter with Villard over an article which Survey magazine had asked him to write. DuBois denounced the editors of the magazine for rejecting his essay, because it allegedly contained a vituperative demand for "social rights"; he privately accused Villard of joining the magazine in a conspiracy against him and his claims on behalf Of B1ack_pepple. The controversial paragraph was the following: lOQ£l§l§. VII (February, 1914), 188. 6O . . . the Negro must demand his social rights: His right to be treated as a gentleman, when he acts like one, to marry any Sane, grown person who wants to marry him, and to meet and eat with his friends without being accused of undue assumption or unworthy ambition. There was nothing in the paragraph to which Villard and the N.A.A.C.P. had not subscribed to on previous occa- sions. Villard's objections, however, were procedural ones. He believed that DuBois, after opening the article with a statement that the Association supported the as— sertions, had forfeited his right to write as an indi- vidual, and was, in fact, acting in the capacity of an Association executive. DuBois continued to go on his own. His sharp tongue and editorial autonomy created more problems for the Association than were solved. Without consulting the Association's leadership and without measuring the conse- quences, he attacked large sections of the Black press, because he felt that it was inaccurate, unscrupulous, and illiterate. Despite the N.A.A.C.P.'S declaration of con— fidence in the Black press, DuBois refused to be silenced, and suggested that Black editors of the Richmond Planet, 11Crisis, V (February, 1914), 186-87. 61 and the Norfolk Journal and Guide refused to lead public opinion, and were content in the role "of following afar with resonant brays . . . ."12 Yet it seemed that he was softening. He acknowledged that the New York Agp_had cooperated with him in seeking to prevent D. W. Griffith's "The Clansman" from being performed in New York City in 1915. He also grudgingly conceded that other individuals, agencies, and organizations were participating in the campaign to prevent the passage of racist legislation in the Sixty—Third Congress.l3 Now the power struggle between DuBois and the board of directors was approaching an end. At the De— cember, 1915 board session, DuBois was asked to present for evaluation a summary of his contributions since 1910—- the year the N.A.A.C.P. was incorporated.14 Board members reflected that the Crisis editor would have shown greater wisdom if it had emphasized examples of interracial COOp- eration more frequently. IZQEEEEEJ IX (JU1Y. 1915). 312. 13Ibid., p. 312. 14Minutes of the N.A.A.C.P. Board of Directors, December 13, 1915. Cited in Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership, p. 169. 15Ibid., p. 170. 62 On January 1, 1916, DuBois planned to announce that the Crisis would become self—supporting, since he perceived the journal's autonomy as his professional "trump card" in his demand for editorial independence. In other editorials, DuBois attempted to justify his control of the magazine, even though the Association paid his salary and the office expenses of the Crisis. His basic editorial tone was an indication that he regarded his editorial power as being so absolute that he could publicly accuse his employers through his editorials, and also demonstrate to his readers that ideological dissen— sion existed among the officers of the Association on the issue of the editorial tone and content of the Crisis. At the December, 1915 board conference, Arthur Spingarn read the two basic charges against DuBois. The first was that he had often devoted a considerable amount of his work-day to his own writings and research and was not always available to assist immediate N.A.A.C.P. pro- jects. Even though Spingarn admitted DuBois' personal achievements were extraordinary, he asserted that the Association desired more of his time and efforts in N.A.A.C.P. work. Spingarn reminded the board of directors 63 that DuBois' duties had never been specifically delin- iated. That the Crisis was an organ of the N.A.A.C.P.. and while it was impossible for all board members to be in accorance with the opinions expressed in the maga- zine's editorials. DuBois must not deviate from N.A.A.C.P. administrative policy. Fortunately for DuBois. Sping- arn's attack misfired; the issue was quietly dropped.16 After 1916 on. DuBois was preoccupied with writing democratic propaganda urging Black people to embrace the doctrine of equal rights. As editor of the Crisis. DuBois not only discussed race relations; he was also critical of "the Southern way of life." He asked in an editorial in 1917. the following: "What sort of a culture is it that cannot control itself in the most fundamental of human relations. that is given over to mobs. reactionary legislation and cruel prac- tices? . . ."17 16Ibid.l p. 170. l7Q£}§;§, XIII (January. 1917). 154. 64 DuBois' editorials points out his clear, sharp, and dramatically effective style. His sentences were fre- quently cogent, making it easy for his readers to memorize them. a) We must rally to the defense of our schools. b) The Negro in the United States lives under a regime worse than during the time of Lincoln, when his life was saved as valu— able property.19 c) The political power of the Black Belt makes and unmakes Presidents and rules the United States Congress.20 Other times his rage was protective of Black peOple: The Negro does not condone the criminal ele- ment of his race, nor does he believe every person charged with crime is innocent, but he uncompromisingly protests against the substi- tution of mob law for regularly constituted authority. If force is to be rule, and the Black cannot be assured of his protection by the powers who are sworn to protect him, shall he renounce the law of self—defense and submit to everything inconceivable that is committed against him, because he is Black and has no rights that are to be reSpected221 18Ibid., 111. lggripip, XIX (February, 1920), 208. 20 . . CriSis, XIX (February, 1920), 198. 21Crisis, XIX (February, 1920), 208, 65 In the tenth anniversary issue of the Crisis, DuBois in an article entitled "Progress" wrote: "The progress of the colored American in the last five years has been the most marvelous of any period since emanci- pation."22 This progress included new ownership of land, new and beautiful homes, new business enterprises, larger amounts of capital seeking investment, a new appreciation for and joining of labor unions, new kinds of better paying work, and a larger number of children attending school.23 Here DuBois was counselling for the newly found spirit and progress of his peOple. He was pushing for less bewilderment, listlessness, and impotence to a new and higher sense of vigor, hOpefulness, and socioeconomic power and influence. He said, "We are no longer depending upon our friends; we are depending upon ourselves."24 More manfully and radically he continued: "If mobs attack 2 us we are prepared to defend ourselves as men." 5 zzgripip, XXI (November, 1920), 5. 23Q£i§i§, XXI (November, 1920), 5. 24 . . CriSis, XXI (November, 1920), 5. 2 . . 5CriSis, XXI (November, 1920), 5. 66 On the other hand, the following statement attracted the sympathy and support of whites. He said: But far from seeking to arouse the mob Spirit we are organizing for social uplift in every possible way and seeking alliance with the great national agencies. DuBois felt that the secret of Black peoples' progress was largely in the self—discovery of their own ability to do for themselves: There are still a few of us who are running away to avoid each other with the vague feel— ing that we Shall lose ourselves the world and be free. But the mass of black folks have made the great discovery. They have discovered each other. They have come to know what fine lovable companionship and inspiration can be had in their own race. They are happily glad, almost at times made, with the joy of the new discovery. It frees and heartens them, makes them self—confident and human. The tide of the New Day rises with majestic force, but does it yet fully feel and recognize the in- dustrial revolution that is sweeping the earth?27 I feel that the above aptly summarizes the basic philOSOphy, not only of Black peOple in the 1920's, but also of today. It is rather amusing that every 30 or 40 years Black peOple congratulate themselves on their 2§Q£l§l§. XXI (November, 1920), 5. 27grg§g§, XXI (November, 1920), 6. 67 "progress" and new found "Black pride." There is obvi- ously an ironic element of subtle deception in the Amer— ican body politic which causes this kind of ritualistic celebration of so-called progress. Along with being editor of the Crisis, DuBois re- garded himself as an advocate of civil and human rights who stirred up intellectual controversies, critically commented on current events related to the problem of race. He prOVided argUments and sOlutions for racial egali— tarianism, and formulated theoretical blueprints, many of which are being enacted today on the part of self- styled Black nationalists or revolutionaries. He was not an organizational leader* who could present a project to the N.A.A.C.P. leadership, solicit ideas, translate the product into a workable program, and weld individuals into a unit to administer the project. He most explicitly revealed the impact of oppression and of the American creed in creating ambivalent loyalties toward race and nation in the minds of Black Americans. *See Harold R. Isaacs, The New World of Negro Americans (New York: The John Day Company, 1963), p. 197. 28August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880— 1915 (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1964), p. 190. 68 DuBois was an intellectual in the finest sense. His feelings were that he, along with other Black intel- lectuals, could provide sound theoretical leadership thus leaving the impersonal tasks of administration to others. This was a basic flaw in his thinking throughout his career. Due to the fact that he was an intellectual, much of his influence and power was undermined because he was never in a position, after theorizing and formu— 1ating a program, to provide the necessary administration and financing of such a program. Had DuBois posessed a genius of administration along with his superb and adroit intellect, he would have prevented much of the quarreling which tranSpired between he and the N.A.A.C.P. board of directors. As a result of his belief that he could be more influential in the cause of human freedom by publishing the Crisis, than by taking an aggressive role in the N.A.A.C.P. board sessions. DuBois maintained and defended his right to follow a policy of editorial independence. The editorial policy tended to anger the members of the board, which subsequently contributed to his dismissal. VI. THE CRISIS: BLACK RADICALS AND WHITE LIBERALS In his 1913 inaugural address, Woodrow Wilson re- ferred to America as returning to its first principles. The method was the spread of knowledge—-he called it sci- ence--and the spirit was to be the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right.1 Actually the new freedom of which Wilson spoke was the program of the N.A.A.C.P. Though the initial statements of the associa- tion were a bit vague, they clearly aligned the new group with the progressive movement. The intentions of the progressives were to remove the obstacles to the free development of the individual; the Association focused on the great impediment to all Black people—-discrimination. In order to combat this 1Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd (eds.), The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (3 Vols.; New York: 1926), II, p. 5. 2Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader In A Time of Crisis, p. 93. 69 7O discrimination. the N.A.A.C.P. proposed education. legal action. and organization. The organization sought edu- cation of the American people regarding their abuse of Negro rights. and legal action in the courts to remove obstacles blocking Black organization and progress. Thus the N.A.A.C.P. embodied the concept of those Black and white Americans whose basic faith in mankind abhorred discrimination and its related components. This program for the rights of Black people met DuBois' approval. DuBois was pleased to link Black peoples' progress to progressivism. to free Black people from concentration on their own progress and unite their cause with an even larger one-world uplift.3 DuBois had bitterly criticized Taft and Roosevelt as being disin- terested in the plight of Black people through court ac- tion. Through consultation with Bishop Alexander walters of the African Zion Church. DuBois and Bishop Walters felt 3From "The Forward Movement." a speech given by W. E. B. DuBois. OctOber. 1910. Cited in Broderick. W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis. p. 93. 4DuBois. Dusk of Dawn. p. 6. 71 that Wilson might be influenced on behalf of helping Black people. Thus the two of them proposed to throw the influ- ence of the Crisis against Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft for Wilson. Though he was not a gambler-- DuBois espoused the cause of Wilson-—fully aware of the political risk--an act he would later regret. From this agreement between DuBois and Bishop Wal- ters. Bishop Walters conferred with Wilson. He secured from him. in October. 1912. a categorical expression over his signature of his earnest wish: To see justice done to the colored people in every matter; and not more grudging justice. but justice executed with liberality and cordial good feeling . . . I want to assure them that I should become President of the United States that they may count upon me for absolute fair dealing for everything by which I could assist in advancing the interests of their race in the United States. As a result of this statement DuBois resigned from the New York local No. 1 of the Socialist Party to escape disci- pline for not voting the socialist ticket. He felt that. 6 "I could not let Negroes throw away votes." Just before the election he wrote in the Crisis: 51bid.. p. 234. 6Ibid.: p. 235. 72 We sincerely believe that even in the face of promises disconcertingly vague, and in the face of the solid caste—ridden South, it is better to elect Woodrow Wilson President of the United States and prove once for all if the Democratic Party cares to be democratic when it comes to Black men. It has proven that it can be in many Northern states and cities. Can it be in the nation? We hOpe so and we are willing to risk a trial. With the accession of Woodrow Wilson to the presidency in 1913 there opened for American Negroes a period, lasting through World War I and culminating in 1919, Which was an extraordinary test of their courage in~a time of crue elty, discrimination, and wholesale murders. For this there were several reasons: the return to power for_ the first time Since the Civil War of the Southern Democracy; secondly, the apprehension and resentment aroused in the South by the campaign of the N.A.A.C.P. But above and beyond that, the rising economic rivalry between colored and white workers in the United States due to the whole economic stress of the modern world with its industrial imperialism. It is most interesting to note that during this period, Southern white laborers had for years been whipped 7Ibid., p. 235. 8Ibid., p. 236. 73 into hatred cxf Black people by the racist attitudes of Ben Tillman, James K. Vardaman, and Jeff Davis of Ar— kansas. Moreover, Southern Congressmen proceeded to de— mand enforcement of the system at the national level; At the meeting of Wilson's first Congress there came the greatest flood of bills proposing discriminatory legisla- tion against Black people that has ever been introduced into an American Congress. There were no less than twenty bills advocating "Jim Crow Cars" in the District of Co— lumbia, requiring race segregation of employees, excluding Black people from commissions in the army and navy, for- bidding the intermarriage of Blacks and whites, and ex— cluding all immigrants of African descent. As a prelude to World War I, DuBois sought to im— prove his race's bargaining power by not only supporting Woodrow Wilson, but also through co-Operation with many Black conservatives of that era. Even when World war I was declared be continually pursued his goals of racial justice for Black peOple. Thus in joining with Black conservatives and also with the Allies, he had joined #— 9Ibid., p. 236. 74 his enemies; he had not yet perceived the many discomforts and dilemmas awaiting him. Before the United States joined the war, DuBois appeared to be quite confused. At the beginning, he felt that racial prejudice, manifesting itself in the acquisi— tion of Black colonies by the imperialistic nations of England, France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany, was the major reason for World War I. As he viewed it, white workers, once having achieved political power, rebelled against the capitalistic system of exploitation which was unleashed by the industrial revolution, thus, the need for the above mentioned nations to look beyond their own borders for natural resources and huge profits. African colonization was their logical choice for exploitation.10 Moreover, excessive greed brought on the slaughter of African natives and inevitably one European nation after another challenged each other over the spoils.11 Thus World war I began. DuBois supported the Allies against the "barbarous Germans," because for him, the Germans loRudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study In Minority Group Leadership, p. 194. llIbid., p. 194. 75 were super-racists who gloried in their suppression of the African natives, while the English and French were conscience—stricken after they recognized to what degra— dation their racism and greed had led them. His com— mitment to the Allies seemed contradictory and untenable in that he had previously declared "European civiliza- tion" a failure, and that the war was not the temporary perversion of the cultures of Europe-~but more clearly "the real soul of white culture." The next thing to do was to indict American society, "the daughter of a dying Europe."1 After the United States joined the Allies in World War I, DuBois thought "the white world" was no longer the monster. He exhorted his brothers and sisters to forget their special grievances and to "close ranks" shoulder to shoulder with white Americans and the Allied nations who were fighting for democracy.14 He also appealed to Black 12Ibid., p. 194. 13DuBois, "African Roots of War," Atlantic Monthly, CXV (May, 1915), 707-14. 14Crisis, XVI (July, 1918), 111. See Woodrow Wilson, Vol. XVIII, A Compilation of The Messages and Papers of the Presidents, "War Message," delivered to Joint Session of Congress, April 8, 1917 (New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., n.d.). 76 people for their support to the N.A.A.C.P. to escape narrow racial provincialism in order to give moral and financial support to the movement for freedom and democ- racy. Moreover. it was the Crisis under DuBois' editor- ship along with the N.A.A.C.P. which he hoped would speed the arrival of justice. DuBois' contradictions were the results of his frustrations at attempting to provide intellectual leader— ship to Black people in a politically white—controlled and dominated land. Where in some respects he was a lonely and resigned person who earnestly carried the self- imposed burden of all oppressed people. he was also a man who clearly recognized the relationship between the op— ’pressed non-whites and the poor whites. In reference to Black workers in a demand for full social and political equality. DuBois said: I hold these truths to be self evident that a disfranchised working class in modern indus- trial civilization is worse than helpless. It is a menace not simply to itself but to every other group in the community. It will be di- seased. it will be criminal. it will be ignor— ant. it will be the plaything of mobs. and it will be insulted by caste restrictions.15 15Paper read by W. E. B. DuBois at the National Interracial Conference. Washington. D.C.. 1928. 77 To be sure, there was almost nobody inside or outside his race that he completely trusted and no political leaders to whom he could give his unreserved allegiance. More importantly for DuBois, the war produced opportunities for arguing the cause of Black peOple. He noted, for example, of Black soldiers fighting in World War I: "We owe it to ourselves that, while they are giv- ing their lives abroad to make the world safe for democ— racy we should do our part to make this country safe for their kindred at home."16 Just after the American declar- ation of war, DuBois, among others, demanded the right of Black men to train as fighting men under Black officers and also, a Black training camp for Black officers, the unequivocal end of lynching, Universal suffrage, uni— versal and free common education, and equal rights in public institutions.17 Though DuBois moved towards supporting the war slowly, his support grew as he perceived of the possir bility for Black people to move ahead. Later on, his 6 . . 1 CriSis, XVI (November, 1918), 265. 17Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership, p. 118. ' 'o 78 list of Black demands grew: recognition of citizenship in the draft, higher wages, better employment, appointment of Black Red Cross nurses, the removal of segregated public facilities, and a strong promise from President Wilson against lynching. DuBois gave his positive support to the war effort because he regarded these gains as the beginning of a permanent movement rather than as the peak of a wave which would soon abate itself. DuBois' accom- modation to the American war effort is understandable in that he had calculated, along with Bishop Walters, that they could bargain the votes of Black peOple in exchange for their support for Woodrow Wilson. DuBois, in order to support Wilson, rationalized his action thusly: As to Mr. Wilson, there are, one must confess disquieting facts; he was born in Virginia, and he was long president of a college which did not admit Negro students . . . . On the whole, we do not believe that Woodrow Wilson admires Negroes . . . . Notwithstanding such possible preferences, Woodrow Wilson is a cul- tivated scholar and he has brains . . . . We have therefore a conviction that Mr. Wilson will treat black men and their interests with farsighted fairness. He will not be our friend, but he will not belong to the gang of which Tillman, Vardamann, Hoke Smith and Blease are the brilliant expositors. He will not ad- vance the cause of an oligarchy in the South, he will not seek further means of "Jim Crow" insult, he will not dismiss black men wholesale from office and he will remember that the 79 Negro , . . has a right to be heard and con— sidered, and if he becomes President by the grace oflthe black man's vote, his Democratic successors may be more willing to pay the black man's price of decent travel, free labor, votes and education.18 To be sure, DuBois actually felt that Eugene Debs was the ideal candidate but that Wilson was the only realistic . 19 . . . . ch01ce. Thus after giVing all of his support to Wilson and the war, in the end, most of DuBois' demands were aborted in the federal and state legislatures. As a matter of fact the demands were not even considered by Wilson or his administration. Moreover, Wilson had no . . 21 . . . interest in the welfare of the Negro. This was v1v1dly shown during Wilson's administration for executive ap- pointments were almost nil, and the policy of segregation in the federal offices was greatly widened.22 lggripgp, IV (August, 1912), 181. 19August Meier, Negro Thought in Americay71880- 1915 (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1964), p. 188. /”20 . J/XDUBOIS, Dusk of Dawn, p. 236. 0/} / KMI , 1Meier, Negro Thought in Americayfl880—l915, p. 165. 221bid., p. 165. 80 Therefore DuBois found that his and the efforts of the N.A.A.C.P. were abortive for a reason which did not seem plausible. DuBois had calculated that increased independence in the Black vote would bring a bid for the Black vote from Opposing parties. Indeed it was not until the re-election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936, that the Black vote in the North was seriously contended for by the two major parties. After the war, the very height of DuBois' previous hopes set the measure of his disillusionment. His Easter editorial in 1919 asked for the loyalty of Black people to be rewarded because they had helped to save democracy: they could have "wrought mischief and confusion patterning themselves after the I.W.W. and the Pro-Germans."23 But not one Negro, he said, was arrested as a traitor or "even" as a conscientious objector. With clean hands the Negroes looked for fair play. Instead they experienced race riots and mounting discrimination by trade unions. Mocked, hurt, and angry, DuBois again raiSed the threat of.violence; little remained of his alliance with white liberals.24 2 . . 3DuBois, "My EvolVIng Program for Negro Freedom," p. 110. 4Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader in A Time of Crisis, p. 110. 81 After World War I, DuBois saw that Black peOple were becoming less insistent upon their right to cultural and social assimilation. He now perceived a burgeoning sense of brotherhood among his people. Thus,he felt that not only had segregation of the races failed to thwart the advance of Black people, but, in fact, had come to serve as its greatest stimulus. In the 1920's, DuBois and his movement for Black nationalism clashed with Marcus Garvey's more outgoing brand of Black nationalism. Unlike DuBois, Marcus Garvey was able to gain mass support and had tremendous appeal.25 The difference in the two men was that DuBois was essen- tially a thinker who appealed more to the Black middle— class. Whereas Garvey appealed more to the masses of all Black peOple as a thinker and leader. The Garvey move— ment was one trend in existence in the twenties that ap- pealed to the grOUp solidarity of the Negro.2 An organizer, Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association, with headquarters in New 25Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Studyyin Minority Group Leadership, p. 216. 26Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellec- tual (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1967), p. 58. 82 York and branches in most of the principal cities of the United States and several foreign countries. He also set up the Black Star Shipping Line and Negro Factories Cor- poration. In August, 1920, Garvey called a month-long convention of the U.N.I.A. in New York City. He did not bother to display the restraint which DuBois employed in his work with the Pan-African Congress: his remarks and speeches were, on the whole, more inflammatory than DuBoish Garvey's nationalism in the United-States tobk' on a revolutionary character.27 For example, he warned that his race would shed its blood to remove the whites from Africa. Garvey's genius was in his spectacular show- manship. DuBois never exhibited spectacular Showmanship, his was the manner of the restrained intellectual who carefully chose his words. At the convention, in August, 1920, Garvey paraded his convention delegates through the streets_of Harlem as an exhibit of what a mass leader of Black peOple could produce. Thousands of Black people in Harlem were impressed and excited by the massed units of the African legion in Blue and Red uniforms and the white attired contingents of the Black Cross Nurses. The ._‘_.__. 27Ibid., p. 119. 83 Jaimaican's followers sang the new U-N.I.A. anthem, "Ethiopia, Thou Land of Our Father," and they proudly waved the Association's flag (black for African ancestry, green for the hopes of the Pan-African people, and red for African blood). DuBois' organizational style in no way compared with Garvey's, for DuBois was more intellec- tually restrained and quote prone, in one way or another, to work with and accept the advice of white liberals. He‘also lacked an autonomous organization. Much of his work was carried on under the protectiveness of the N.A.A.C.P. from.which many ideological clashes re- sulted. This inability to have his own organization and a mass following prevented DuBois from accomplishing many of the things he had envisioned. Moreover, Since Garvey was more independent, outgoing, and charismatic, he was the recipient of much jealous and "objective" criticism from DuBois and in the final analsis DuBois, among others, was partially responsible for Garvey's failure in carrying out his program. DuBois was so ambivalent towards Garvey that he largely ignored him until late 1920. He was, neverthe- less, quite impressed by Garvey's extraordinary ability 84 to lead Black people, and he acknowledged that Garvey was "essentially an honest and sincere man with a tremendous vision, great dynamic force, stubborn determination and an unselfish desire to serve." However, DuBois considered Garvey to be "dictatorial, domineering, inordinately vain and very suspicious . . . I . the great difficUlty with him is that he has absolutely no business sense, no flair for real organization and his general objects are so shot through with bombast and exaggeration that it is difficult to pin them down for careful examination."28 After having requested a financial statement from Garvey concerning the solvency of the Universal Negro Im- provement Association, DuBois wrote: "When it comes to Mr. Garvey's industrial and commercial enterprises there is more ground for doubt and misgiving than in the manner of his character."29 At the beginning of DuBois' movement for Black nationalism, he had hOped for cooperation from.Garvey. DuBois felt that this mass movement could stir his people to effect the realization of his own dreams of a Black zggripig, XXI (December, 1920), 58—60. 29Ibid., 58-60. 85 economy, directly related to the oppressed Black people of the world, in the final analysis reclaiming Africa for all Africans. DuBois was also interested in the success of the Garvey movement because it had generated so much "Spiritual" potential that its fall might destroy racial self-confidence for generations. Due to the inability of the Garvey movement to sustain itself, the problems of Black people today (economic, political and cultural) are the accumulation of unsolved issues that arose fifteen, twenty, thirty, fifty years ago and were never honestly tackled at the outset, when they demanded immediate, on- the—Spot attention.30 DuBois' criticisms of the Garvey movement were quite mild in view of the fact that Garvey and his organ- ization had been attacking him for more than a year. Just before the 1919 Pan—African Congress, Garvey alleged that DuBois talked so mildly and equivocally to French reporters about American race relations that Garvey's "High Commis- sioner" abroad found his own work sabotaged.31 Garvey's 3OCruse, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual, p. 258. 31Rudwick, W. E. B. DuBois: A Study In Minority Group Leadership, pp. 58-60. Garvey's "High Commissioner" is unknown by this writer. 86 newspaper, the Negro World, instructed its readers that the Crisis was basically reactionary and was published from an "aristocratic Fifth Avenue" office. After DuBois' comments about Woodrow Wilson's faithfulness and the post war imperialist resurgence, the Negro World observed that Garvey had foreseen these developments as early as 1918, when the N.A.A.C.P. propagandist was counseling co- operation with the United States government. DuBoiS was pictured as a fallen old warrior whose contributions to the race were at an end. With relish the Negro World also took up the cry of the Messenger that DuBois was "controlled" by the white capitalists on the N.A.A.C.P. board.32 At the 1920 U.N.I.A. convention Garvey labeled DuBois "the associate of an alien race." DuBois' criti— cisms were interpreted as evidences of petty jealousy; he was accused of being more of a white man than a Black man. Garvey also criticized DuBois for ignoring the masses of Black people and worshipping a bastard aris— tocracy."33 To add more fuel to the fires of criticism 32Ibid., p. 218. 33Ibid., p. 219. 87 Garvey recalled how he "always walked among his own ordi- nary humble people";to be sure DuBois was much too aloof to do anything similar to this. DuBois viewed Garvey as a disoriented victim of the color line: "All his life whites have laughed and sneered at him, and torn his soul. All his life he has hated the half-whites, who rejecting their darker blood, have gloried in their pale shame."34 DuBois also referred to Garvey as a "little fat, Black man; ugly, but with intelligent eyes and a big head)‘ Garvey replied that his physiognomy was "typical of the African"ahd he placed DuBois in the category of "pale shame"; furthermore, "anything that is Black to him is ugly, is hideous, is monstrous, and this is why in 1917 he had but the lightest of colored peOple in his office when one could hardly tell whether it was white shame or a colored vaudeville he was running at fifth avenue” (the offices of the Crisis and the N.A.A.C.P.).35 34W. E. B. DuBois, "Back to Africa," Century, CV (February, 1923), 542. 3 . 5Rudw1ck (from the Negro World, February 10, 17, 1923), W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leader- ship, p. 229. 88 DuBois was labeled an apostle of "social equal— ity," which in Garvey's thinking represented the kind of person who wanted to squire a white woman to a dance at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The U.N.I.A., according to its Chieftain, was the only organization able to protect the darker—skinned Negro masses against the DuBois—led "caste aristocracy" of light mulattoes, many of whom were "intel- lectuals." Garvey refused to accept defeat, and from his cell at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary angrily demanded an apology from DuBois. Beneath the criticisms, bombast, magniloquent titles, and showy uniforms was a simple message of race, pride, and love; the glorification of blackness in a so- ciety which despised it. Garvey was an evangelist of race pride, while DuBois was, in the same manner, a propagan— dist of race pride. Garvey's meetings had the tone of great religious revivals, whose followers believed him to be sanctified, whose speeches were full of mystical Chris- tian and African symbolism: "The man had the magic in him by which the Negro masses were bewitchedfl Claude McKay wrote. 36Ibid., p. 230. 37Gilbert Osofsky, ed., The Burden of Race (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 261. 89 At a time of great social disruption and racial alienation Garvey offered American Negroes temporary psy- chological escape from what many believed to be a hope— lessly racist nation. No Negro leader in American history has been able to mobilize the Negro masses into a movement . 38 . anywhere near the Size of the Garvey crusade. At a time when the NQA.A.C.P. annual budget amounted to some $50,000 to $60,000, Garvey was able to raise more than $1,000,000 . . . . 39 Within the Negro community itself. The problem of Afro—American nationalism is as American as its historical roots. Its origins are to be found in the nationalist vs. integrationist,Frederick Douglass—Martin R. Delany,Booker T. Washington-—W. E. B. . . 40 DuBOis conflicts down through the 1920's. As such, Garvey and DuBois could have been much more successful in their programs had Garvey been less escapist and ro— mantically oriented with a ”back to Africa movement," and DuBois' prOpaganda program could have been more effective 38Ibid., p. 262. 39l§i§,, p. 262. See Harold Cruse, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual, p. 124. 4OHarold Cruse, The Crisis of The Negro Intellec- tual, p. 344. 90 if it had been more practically oriented to the masses rather than an elitist-bourgeOis one. Both men tended to divide and immobilize valuable forces within the Black community because their constant arguing proved to be de— structive and useless. On the other hand, the two could have provided a much greater benefit and service to Black people by attempting to unit their efforts on a more broadly based democratic—socialist type program which would have included all segments of Black people uniting against a hostile white majority. In order to further understand the DuBois- Washington*—Garvey conflict one must understand the pe— culiar historical process of the dichotomous nature of integrationist and nationalist tendencies as they have been historically projected from Frederick Douglass, Martin Delaney, Malcolm X, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and W. E. B. DuBois. The only way to understand this process is to see the fundamentals at work. The underlying conflict between Garvey and DuBois can be contrasted with that of Frederick *Garvey adopted many of Washington's principles vispa—vis Black nationalism. See Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, p. 563. 91 Douglas and Martin Delany. We know that DuBois was essen- tially an integrationist and Garvey a nationalist; con- versely, the same parallel exists for Douglass the inte- grationist and Delany the nationalist. Moreover, no matter how nationalistic one might be the realities of American politics is such that the circumstances more or less dictate that the nationalist is forced to move closer to the civil rights—integrationist position in order to participate more fully in the broad struggle. This ex- plains the paradox of "selling out." Again we see paral- lels in the careers of Douglass, Delany, DuBois, and Malcolm X. Black American history is basically a history of the conflict between integrationist and nationalist forces in politics, economics, and culture, no matter what leaders are involved and what slogans are used. After Marcus Garvey's fall, the tendency toward Black'nationalism was forced to revert 'back to the conservative integrationist— nationalism of Douglass. The ideological pendulum swings back and forth, but the men who Swing with it always fail to synthesize composite trends. Says Harold Cruse: "W. E. B. DuBois came closest to understanding this 92 problem, when he wrote in Dusk of Dawn, 'There faces the American Negro therefore an intricate and subtle problem of combining into one object two difficult sets of facts.”41 The "two difficult sets of facts” DuBois refers to are integrationism (civil rights, racial equality, freedom) versus nationalism (separatism, accommodationist self—segregation, economic nationalism, group solidarity, and self-help). This was truly the first theoretical formulation of the historic conflict between tendencies, but DuBois never develOped his basic theoretical prem- ise.42 He failed to go beyond this first principle into a greater synthesis of all the historical ingredients of Black America, which he knew better than Booker T. Wash- ington or Marcus Garvey combined. Like Karl Marx, DuBois was one of history's great researchers--a Sifter, inter- preter, and recorder of historical and contemporary knowledge; but unlike Marx, he could not reinterpret his 41Cruse, The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual, p. 564. 42Ibid., p. 564. 93 data into new conceptions of social reality. Still he came close, albeit later in life.43 It has been historically unfortunate that the Black American has not.created any said theorists to back up his long line of'activist leaders, charismatic deliv- erers, Black redemptionists, and moral suasionists."44 With a few perceptive and original thinkers, the Black movement conceivably could long ago have aided in revers- ing the retrogression of the United States toward the moral negation of its great promises as a new nation of nations.45 Instead the Black American has unwittingly been forced to share in many of the corrupted values of the society——yet not enough though, to be sure, to com— pletely prohibit his inherent potential for social change. However, the intellectual horizons of the Black intelli- gentsia have been so narrowed in sc0pe and banalized by the American corrosion that Black creativity has been diminished Since the 1920's.46 431bid.. pp. 564-565. 44Ibid., pp. 564—565. 45Ibid., p. 565. 46Ibid., p. 565. 94 Thus, the farther Black people get from their historical antecedents in time, the more tenuous their conceptual ties become, the emptier their social concep— tions, and the more superficial their visions.47 The only great and present hope for Black Americans is to know and understand the Black.American history in the United States more profoundly. Failing that, and failing to create a new synthesis and a social theory of action, Black Americans will suffer the historical fate described by Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."48 After the DuBois-Garvey confrontation ended in the late 1920's, DuBois was once again free to write, travel, and reflect upon the problems of Black people. The more he traveled and studied, the less possible it was for him to maintain his composure or restrict his verbal rancor. As he reviewed the horrors of World War I his utterances were quite vituperative: "This is not EurOpe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; 47Ibid., p. 565. 8George Santayana, The Life of Reason (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954). p. 82. 95 this is Europe; this seeming terrible is the real soul of white culture in back of all culture stripped and vis— ible today."49 In more radical form. he wrote in 1921: "The United States is increasing tenancy and land monopoly as a result of the Post-War migration to the North. And our host of political prisoners. our mobs and lynching. Our curb of free speech. our color caste. unemployment and mock of democracy. we bid fair to lead the world back- wards.“50 Later. DuBois felt that the fundamental turning point in his attitude toward racism in 1930. came when he realized that beyond his ". . . conception of ignorance and deliberate ill will as the cause of racism. there must be other and stronger and more threatening forces. 51 forming the founding stones of race antagonisms . . . Here we find a rejection of one of his earlier illusions that "the monstrous wrong of race hate would disappear 49W. E. B. DuBois. "On Being Black." New Reppblic. XXI (February 18. 1920). p. 222. 50M! XXIII (February. 1921): 151. 51DuBois. Dusk of Dawn. p. 283. 96 if only the truth was properly presented to the masses of Americans."52 Due to the work of the N.A.A.C.P. in its fight for equal rights, no longer was anything said concerning the alleged "degeneracy" of Black people; seldom were they referred to as barbarians, and even the old myth of Black men raping white women had been successfully denied with statistical proof.53 Yet with extreme disappointment he noted that the barriers of race prejudice were cer- tainly as strong in 1930 as in 1900 the world over, and in certain aSpects, even stronger. Thus DuBois was convinced that he must seek more fundamental causes of discrimination than mass ignorance or deliberate ill—will. He called upon his peOple to ferret out and attack those hidden forces, which he was soon to identify with capitalism. Black people were no longer to merely ask certain whites to relinquish their undemocratic practices and beliefs, for he was now ready 521bid., p. 282. 53Mary Lou Chaffee, "W. E. B. DuBois' Concept of the Racial Problem in the U.S.," Journal of Negro His- tory, XLI (July, 1956), 253-254. 54Ibid., p. 283. 97 to proceed directly, deliberately, and constructively with a plan of his own.55 Referring to Russia he said that: "One of the largest nations of the world is facing a set of problems which no nation at any time has been willing to face, and which many nations, including our own . . . are unwilling to face to this day."56 Thus democracy could not serve its purpose for it allowed "the mass of people to have only a limited voice in govern- ment. Obviously DuBois' trip to Russia in 1928 had a pro- found impression upon his view of the race problem.58 He had been brought up with the democratic idea that the establishment of the general welfare was the result of democratic action, of allowing the people a voice in gov- ernment. But through the crimson illumination of World War I, he realized that so—called democracy was allowing the masses only a limited voice in government; and that 551bid., p. 254. 56DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 285. 57Ibid., p. 285. 58 . . Chaffee, "W. E. B. DUBOIS' Concept of the Rac1al Problem in the U.S.," p. 254. 98 democratic control of earning a living and distributing goods and services was absent. That instead of a democ— racy we had an oligarchy based on industrial monOpoly and income; and that this oligarchy was to deny democ- racy in legislation and choice of officials.59 From the Russians he had learned to admire the Soviets' poverty- solution plan of "putting into the hands of those who performed the world's work the power to guide and rule the state for the best welfare of the masses.‘50 Most importantly, he was quite impressed with the fact that in Russia there was an unforgetable spirit of humanity, "in spite of almost insurmountable obstacles; in the fact of contempt and chicanery and the armed force of the civilized world, this nation was determined to go forward and establish a government of men, such as the world had never seen."61 He believed that the basic assumption and guiding principle of the U.S.S.R. was: "Out of the down-trodden masses of peOple, ability, and character sufficient to do this task effectively could 59DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 285. 60Ibid., p. 284. 61 Ibid., p. 287. 99 and would be found.62 DuBois joined in agreement; he decided that he too, believed in this dictum passion- ately."63 In addition to his fusillade of criticisms upon democracy, DuBois added a vocal outburst against the church. He had always been very skeptical as to the ability of religion to solve any of man's major societal dilemmas. He believed too little in Christian dogma.64 Rejecting Christianity as dogma, he also became distrust- ful of Christian ethics, for he could find scant ethical commitment on the issue in Christian churches. More spe- cifically, he remarked: "If religion were not true col— lege would confirm it.65 Thus, "a religion that won't stand the application of reason and common sense, is not fit for an intelligent dog."66 More conclusively, on the 62Ibid., p. 285. 63Ibid., p. 285. 64See W. E. B. DuBois, "The White Masters of the World," Amistad 2, John A. Williams & Charles F. Harris, eds. (New York: Random House, 1971). PP. 178-179. 65W. E. B. DuBois, A Pageant in Seven Decades (Atlanta, 1938), p. 4. 66W. E. B. DuBois, "Will the Church Remove the Color Line?," Qhristian Century, XLVIII (December 9, 1931), 1554. 100 Christian church. DuBois bluntly stated that the church which refused to take any conclusive or effective stand on its dogma. offered absolutely no solution to the racial problem.67 He also asserted: "In this as in nearly every other great modern moral controversy. it will be found consistently on the wrong Side."6 Gradually it dawned upon DuBois just what the essential change in the world had been since the world- wide adoption of the capitalistic commercial ethic.69 Even though the N.A.A.C.P. had put forth one of the finest efforts of liberalism to achieve human emancipation. DuBois could not agree with the Association that a con- tinued agitation for entrance into the economy of America. or legal judgments on behalf of civil rights. would re- establish freedom on a firmer basis. He felt that this ideology was narrow and shortsighted. and that the demo- cratic concept for which the Association had been fighting would have to be drastically transformed in order to replace the tyranny of the industrial state. 67Ibid.. p. 1554. 68DuBois. Dusk of Dawn. pp. 288—289. 69Ibid.r p. 289. 101 Understanding that few of his colleagues on the N.A.A.C.P. board of trustees Shared his feelings of pur— poseful segregation for economic defense, DuBois was moved to sever his connections with the N.A.A.C.P. in 1934. He forthwith gave up his connections with the Association saying: In the thirty-five years of public service my contribution to the settlement of the Negro's problems has been mainly candid criticism based on careful effort to know the facts. I have not always been right, but I have been sincere, and I am unfiffling at this late day to be limited in the expression of my honest opinions in the way in which the Board pro- poses; I am therefore resigning immediately.7O AS a fearless agitator for the liberation of his people, DuBois was never able to turn his back on his people; nor was he completely successful in witnessing full freedom and manhood for Black peOple. Every moment of his life had been lived with the realization of his Blackness, and the subsequent racist reaction to the larger white society. This kept DuBois in constant psy— chological and intellectual turmoil to prove his humanness to a hostile world. Moreover, he realized how inextric- ably interrelated his Black world was with the white 7ODuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 313. 102 world; how he traveled, the jobs he held, the pay he re- ceived, where he studied, what he published. To him all of these factors were primarily dependent upon the deci- sions of the white citizens of the United States from whose society he was largely excluded.71 He depicted his plight and the plight of all Black Americans: It is a peculiar sensation, this double con- sciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels this twoness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unrecon- ciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. This duality of Black social economic and polit— ical existence has its counterpart. Whites in America find themselves confronted with the paradox of the demo- cratic ideals of the American creed and their actual manifestations of racism toward their fellow Black citi- zens. The life and work of W. E. B. DuBois clearly shows how a paradoxical society (America) can develOp a para— doxical American. 71DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 136. 72DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, p. 3. CONCLUSION The idea of racial separateness had influenced DuBois' thought Since his early childhood. In the late 1920's and 1930's, after many rebuffs from white liberals, colored people outside the confines of the United States, and the Socialist movement,caused him to be wary of alli- ancesland outsiders. DuBOis actually retreated into a pro- tective intellectual shell within the confines Of his own ethnic group. Within those protective confines, he wel— comed the expanding of Black culture across state and class lines. His philOSOphical aims of Black nationalism appeared early in his comments on literature and the arts, and then spread to politics, to education, and most im- portantly, to business and industry. The "Jim Crow" editorial in 1919 had shown him at the crossroads: 1Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader In A Time of Crisis, p. 150. 103 104 The "colored folk" stand at the parting of ways, and we must take counsel. The objection to segregation and "Jim-Crowism" was in other days the fact that compelling Negroes to associate only with Negroes meant to exclude them from contact with the best culture of the day. Gradually, however, conditions have changed. Culture is no longer the monopoly of the white nor is poverty and ignorance the sole heritage of the black. Many a colored man in our day called to confer- ence with his own and rather dreading the con- tact with uncultivated people even though they were of his own blood has been astonished and deeply gratified at the kind of people he has met--at the evidence of good manners and thought— fulness among his own. This together with the natural human love of herding like with like has in the last decade set up a tremendous current within the colored race against any contact with whites that can be avoided. They have welcomed separate racial in- stitutions. They have voluntarily segragated themselves and asked for more segregation. The North is full of instances of practically colored schools which colored people have demanded and, of course, the colored church and social organi- zations of every sort are ubiquitous. Today both these wings of Opinion are getting suspicious of each other and there are plenty of whites to help the feeling along whites and Blacks ask the Negro who fights Separation: "Are you ashamed of your race? Blacks and whites ask the Negro who welcomes and encourages separa- tion: "Do you want to give up your rights? Do you acknowledge your inferiority?" Neither attitude is correct. Segregation is im— politic, because it is impossible. You cannot build up a logical scheme of a self—sufficing, ll llll‘ll'l‘ll II 105 separate Negro America or a Negro world with no close relations to the white world. If there are relations between races they must be based on the knowledge and sympathy that can come alone from the long and intimate human contact of individuals. On the other hand, if the Negro is to develop his own power and gifts; if he is not only to fight prejudices and Oppression successfully, but also to unit for ideas higher than the world has realized in art and industry and social life, then he must‘Unite and work with Negroes and build a new and great Negro ethos. Here, then, we face the curious paradox and we remember contradictory facts. Unless we had fought segregation with determination, our whole race would have been pushed into an ill-lighted, unpaved, unsewered ghetto. Unless we had built great church organizations and manned our South- ern schools, we Should be shepherdless sheep. Unless we had welcomed the segregation of Fort Des Moines, we would have had no officers in the National Army. Unless we had beaten open the doors of Northern universities, we would have no men fit to be officers. Here is a dilemma calling for thought and for— bearance. Not every builder of racial co— Operation and Solidarity is a "Jim-Crow" advo— cate, a hater of white folk. Not every Negro who fights prejudice and segregation is ashamed of his race. 2Crisis, XVIII (January, 1919), 112-113. Also see Crisis, XVII (January, 1919), 115. This editorial, "Con- sumers Co—operation," gives an excellent explanation of the Negro Cooperative Guild. An organization designed to remove unfair merchants from Black communities. This was DuBois' theory of Black Economic independence. 106 Thus by 1934, the necessity for a separate Black ethos and culture dominated his thought. Actually, the theoretical constructs of DuBois' attitudes towards the Black ethos were rooted in the fact that he realized that nothing Black people fought for could be gained by sheer force of assault, due to their relatively small numbers. He surmised that the desires of Black people could only be realized as the majority of Americans were intelligently persuaded of the rightness of their cause and thus convinced that they too should demand Black peoples' recognition as full citizens. It was DuBois' conviction that the process of social conver— sion must not only deal with the conscious aspects of racism, but with irrational and unconscious habitual man- ifestations of racial behavior which he recognized to have been long buried in the folkways and customs of America. Therefore it became DuBois' firm conviction that intelli— gent prOpaganda, legal enactments and reasoned action must Iattack the conditioned reflexes of racial hatred and seek to change them. The most appalling and revealing revelation to DuBois was the fact that neither he nor his people, nor 107 even the N.A.A.C.P. could expect an attitUdinal change in racial philosophy from white America. He reasoned that the entire aggregate of the white world in America, in Europe, and the world was too determinedly against any form of racial equality, to give power, persuasiveness or legitimacy to the cause of DuBoisian agitation. He therefore began to emphasize and state in his writings to Black peOple, that even though there was a concerted frontal attack upon American and European prejudice, that they should most importantly and assuredly do certain things for their own survival. He then began to exhort his readers and followers in the finest traditions of racial Zionism: You must work together, and in unison; you must evolve and support your own social institu- tions; you must transform your attack from the foray of self-assertive individuals to the massed might of an organized body. You must put behind you your demands, not simply Amer- ican Negroes, but West Indians and Africans, and all the colored races of the world.3 This Spirit appeared in almost all of DuBois' work. In asserting that the work of the Association was "our work and we must do it,"4—-in demanding Negro aid for Black 3Crisis, XXXV (March, 1928), 96. 4CrisiS,XXIII (January, 1922), 105. 108 men accused of crimes; even in accepting the word "Negro," not only as "etymologically and phonetically good," but as the symbol of "all those.spiritual ideals, those inner bonds, those group ideals and forward strivings of this mighty army of 12 million . . . . They are our most pre- cious heritage."5 It was clear to DuBois that his advocacy of a planned economy for bettering the economic conditions of Black Americans was not antagonistic to, but part of, one ideal; that it did not increase segregation or racism. In- deed he .was being pragmatic—-in realizing that racism would long be a part of the American social fabric. Realizing that this solution to the problems of his peOple was an old one, he rationalized that Since Black people had no Zion that, at best, this was a period of astonishing change, and that it was only fair that Black peOple become independent self—supporting citizens at the risk of being expelled from the United States.6 5Crisis, XXXV (March, 1928), 96. 6DuBois, Dusk of Dawn, p. 306. 109 Refusing to accept defeat concerning his tactical ideals for Black freedom and autonomy. DuBois turned to the reading of Robert Owen and Fourier. and traveled ex- tensively throughout the world. AS the logic of economic and political cooperation seemed even more applicable to Black Americans-—he felt that it was not only economic common sense. but racial pride which dictated a need to escape from racial insult and physical (social) death. Now caught up by his own vision of his peoples' future. DuBois advocated his program of racial exclusivity at the expense of his own social and people ostracization. This situation eventually led to his resignation from the N.A.A.C.P. in 1934. ‘DuBois called for a revolutionary change in Black peoples' attitudes. Not only a reconstruction in eco— nomics. but also a revolution in ideas. A spiritual disclaimer of the profit motive and a new concept of service. He was exhorting his people to a crusade. Black people had to do it alone. he said. "for there seems no hope that America in our day will yield its color or race hatred any substantial ground and we have no physical nor economic power. nor any alliance with other social or 110 economic classes that will force compliance with decent civilized ideals in church, state, industry, or art."7 The above statement effectively wrote off all of DuBois' idealistic visions of inter-racial amelioration of which he had once pursued. The separatist undercurrent now became the mainstream. Since the depression, and other factors of a political nature, his hopes were saved for integration, thus, he turned to the secondary program which had always lurked just below the surface of his thought.8 Through the advocacy of Black nationalism, DuBois had effectively completed his framework of Black separat- ism. Without any hope in white America, he desperately turned to his own people to challenge their capacity for self—sacrifice. Enobled by his contemporaries of similar thought, he sadly accepted the fact that for a long time Black people in America would withdraw into the narrow Shell of securing petty gains from white politics to re- mind them that they were indeed Black in a socio- politically malignant America. 7Crisis, XXXX (September, 1933), 20. 8Broderick, W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader in A Time of Crisis, pp. 168-169. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY Aptheker, Herbert (ed.). A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. Vol. I. New York: The Citadel Press, 1968. Broderick, Francis L. W. E. B. DuBois: Negro Leader In A Time of Crisis. Stanford: Stanford Univer- sity Press, 1959. Baker, Ray Stannard, and Dodd, William E. The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson. New York: 1926. Cruse, Harold. The Crisis of The Negro Intellectual. New York: William A. Morrow & Co., 1967. DuBois, W. E. B. The Negro Common School. Atlanta: Atlanta University Press, 1902. DuBois, W. E. B., and Dill, Augustus. Morals and Manners Among Negro Americans. Atlanta: Atlanta Univer- sity Press, 1914. DuBois, W. E. B. Darkwater. New York: Harcourt Brace & Howe Co., 1920. DuBois, W. E. B. "My Evolving Program for Negro Freedom," in Rayford W. Logan (ed.), What the Negro Wants Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944. DuBois, W. E. B. The Philadelphia Negro. New York: Schocken Books, 1967. DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Greenwich: Fawcett Publications, 1967. 111 112 DuBois, W E. B. Black Reconstruction in America: 1860- l O 88 . New York: The World Publishing Co., 1968. DuBois, W. E. B. Dusk of Dawn. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. DuBois, W. E. B. "The White Masters of the World.".ip~ Amistad. Edited by John A. Williams and Charles F. Harris. New York: Random House, 1971. Isaacs, Harold R. The New World of Negro Americans. New York: The John Day Company, 1963. Kellogg, Charles Flint. N.A.A.C.P.: A Historyiof the National Association for the Advancement of Col- ored People. Vol. I. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967. Meier, August. Negro Thought in America: 1880-1915. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1964. Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Vol. XVII. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., n.d. Metcalf, George R. Black Profiles: W. E. B. DuBois. New York: McGraw Hill, 1968. Osofsky, Gilbert A. The Burden of Race. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. VIII , 1904 . Rudwick, Elliott M. W. E. B. DuBois: A Study in Minority Group Leadership. Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn- sylvania Press, 1960. Thorpe, Earl F. The Mind of the Negro: An Intellectual History of Afro—Americans. Baton Rouge: Ortlieb Press, 1961. Santayana, George. The Life of Reason. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954. 113 Wilson, Woodrow. Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 15. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., n.d. Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press, 1957. Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of The New Southypl877-l913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951. Articles from the Crisis DuBois, W. E. B. "Segregation." Crisis, I (November, 1910). 10-11. DuBois, W. E. B. "Holmes On Lynching." Crisis, IV (February, 1912), 109—11. DuBois, W. E. B. "Politics." Crisis, IV (August, 1912), 180—81. DuBois, W. E. B. "An Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson." Crisis, IV (February, 1913), 236-37. DuBois, W. E. B. "Oswald Garrison Villard." Crisis, VII (February, 1914), 188-89. DuBois, W. E. B. "Work for Black Folk in 1914." Crisis, VII (February, 1914), 186-87. DuBois, W. E. B. "The Philosophy of Mr. Dole." Crisis, VIII (May, 1914), 24-5. DuBois, W. E. B. "Logic." Crisis, XI (January, 1915), 132. DuBois, W. E. B. "The Immediate Program of The American Negro." Crisis, III (July, 1915), 310-15. DuBois, W. E. B. "Schools." Crisis, XIII (January,. 1917), 111-12. DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, DuBois, 114 W. E. B. "Jim Crow." Crisis, XVII (January, 1919), 112-13. W. E. B. "Consumers COOperation." Crisis, XVII (January, 1919), 114—15. W. E. B. "The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Col— ored People." Crisis, XIX (February, 1920), 194-98. W. E. B. "America and the Latins." Crisis, XIX (February, 1920), 206—08. W. E. B. "The Negro Press Speaks." Crisis, XIX (February, 1920), 208. W. E. B. "Progress." Crisis, XXI (November, 1920), 5-6. W. E. B. "Marcus Garvey." Crisis, XXI (December, 1920), 58-60. W. E. B. "The World and US." Crisis, XXIII (February, 1922), 151. W. E. B. "The Harding Political Plan." Crisis, XXIII (January, 1922), 105-06. W. E. B. fThe Name Negro." Crisis, XXXV (March, 1928), 96. W. E. B. "On Being Ashamed of Oneself." Crisis, XXXX (September, 1933), 199-200. Articles Bennett, Lerone. "The Politics of The Outsider." Negro Digest, XVII (August, 1969), 4-35. 115 Chaffee, Mary Law. "W. E. B. DuBois' Concept of the Ra— cial Problem in the United States." Journal of Negro History, XLI (July, 1956), 253-65. DuBois, W. E. B. ”The Study of Negro Problems." Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science, XI (January, 1898), 1-23. DuBois, W. E. B. "The Spawn of Slavery." Missionary Review of the World, XXIV (October, 1901), 737-45. DuBois, W. E. B. "African Roots Of War." Atlantic Monthly, CXV (May, 1915), 707-14. DuBois, W. E. B. "On Being Black." New Republic, XXI (February 18, 1920), 222-26. DuBois, W. E. B. “Back to Africa." Century, CV (Febru- ary, 1923), 539-48. DuBois, W. E. B. "Will the Church Remove the Color Line?" Christian Century, XLVIII (December 9, 1931), 1554-56. Holmes, Eugene C. "W. E. B. DuBois: Philosopher." Freedomways (first quarter, 1965), 41-46. Stuckey, Sterling. "W. E. B. DuBois AS An Inspirer of Negro Youth." Freedomwayp (first quarter, 1965), 143—153. Redding, J. Saunders. "Portrait of W. E. Burghardt DuBois." American Scholar, XVIII (Winter, 1948- 49), 93-96. Wesley, Charles H. "W. E. B. DuBois: The Historian." Freedomways (first quarter, 1965), 59-71.