ABSTRACT
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was one of the greatest social thinkers who ever lived. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts he attended local schools and then proceeded for higher education at Fisk University, Harvard and University of Berlin. He was the first African-American to attain a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895. He worked as professor at Wilberforce University and then worked at the University of Pennsylvania doing a one year research in Philadelphia slums which led to him publishing a social study in 1899, The Philadelphia Negro, which was the first of its kind showcasing the plight of African-Americans in America. He also worked at Atlanta University as a professor in History and Economics for several years.
Du Bois was also one of the most dedicated civil rights activists of his time and campaigned tirelessly for the rights of the ‘colored people’ as he referred to the blacks. He differed with the ‘Atlanta Compromise’ by Booker T. Washington where Washington purported that blacks should accept segregation and inferiority and accept to study industrial education making them labourers. Du Bois believed that his people needed to pursue higher education so as to achieve civilization and be leaders. He formed the Niagara Movement in opposition of the ‘Atlanta Compromise’ and later the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) together with other activists. At NAACP he was the editor of its monthly magazine the Crisis which acted as his major vehicle for his activism for equality and equal opportunities for African –Americans. He wrote several works including The Souls of Black Folk where he pointed out important theories of looking at racism ‘Double Consciousness’ and the “veil” brought about by racial discrimination leading to misconceptions. He remained an Activist until his death in Ghana in August 1963.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Several authors have discussed the contributions of W.E.B Dubois to alleviate racism for the African-American. In all these works Du Bois is seen to fight racism through his advocacy for higher education for the blacks and by putting forward the concepts of ‘Double Consciousness’ and the ‘Veil’ (Goodman & Ritzer, 2003 ;Maher, 2009; Miller, 2006). These author’s writings all present these concepts but differ in the way they represent their meaning.
Goodman & Ritzer argue that the veil is an imaginary barrier separating whites and blacks and that Du Bois hoped that his work would give whites a glimpse of what existed behind the veil. Maher concludes that the veil is a symbol representing racism and Miller on the other hand argues that blacks are actually born with this veil which is their black color. Goodman & Ritzer talk of double consciousness as a feeling of ’twoness’ as blacks try to fit into the white society and also maintain racial identity. Maher indicates that the Du Bois coupled the veil with double consciousness thus dematerializing the concept of the veil. Miller purports that the concept of double consciousness involves black self conception and also perceiving oneself from the whites’ eyes (Goodman & Ritzer, 2003 ;Maher, 2009; Miller, 2006).
Miller and Maher also appreciate the concept of the ‘Second Sight’ as a gift to African Americans allowing them to understand the whites and their world in general from a wider perspective of an outsider. Goodman and Ritzer have not appreciated this concept. The three authors also appreciate the concept of higher education supported by Du Bois to alleviate racism and achieve black civilization (Goodman & Ritzer, 2003 ;Maher, 2009; Miller, 2006). Miller and Goodman & Ritzer also discuss the concept of the economy as a cause of racial segregation as is purported by W.E.B. Du Bois.
INTRODUCTION
William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B) Du Bois was a great American thinker, sociologist, social critic, author, editor and civil rights activist. He was born in 1868 and died in 1963. He lived a lifetime of combating widespread racism in the United States. His efforts were towards ensuring equality for all colored/ black people. His main theory was on race and racism where he spoke of African Americans having a double consciousness leading to them having a dual self- concept. According to Du Bois African Americans were also shrouded by a veil and thus they whites did not see them for who they were and also the blacks did not also see the whites clearly.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
On the 23rd day of February in the year 1868 in a small New England village of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, W.E.B. Du Bois was born. His father was Alfred Alexander Du Bois and his mother Mary Silvina (Burghardt) Du Bois. The family lived among their fellow black Americans and thus did not experience much racial discrimination growing up. His family unlike most other black Americans had just been freed from slavery. This is because his maternal great- grandfather Tom Burghardt, a slave born in West Africa, had served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and thus gained his freedom. The Burghardts had become accepted as part of the community they lived in for many generations.
Du Bois met Nina Gomer while working at Wilberforce University and married her in 1896. The couple had their first born child, a son, Burghardt Gomer, who died in 1897 in Atlanta while still a baby and was buried in Great Barrington. In1900, the couple had their second child a daughter, Nina Yolande. In 1950, Du Bois’ wife, Nina Gomer Du Bois, died and was also buried in Great Barrington. Du Bois in 1952 married Shirley Graham and moved to Ghana in 1961 taking up residence and later taking up Ghanaian citizenship. His daughter Nina Yolande died in 1961 and was too buried in Great Barrington. On the 27th August 1963, W.E.B. Du Bois died and a state funeral was organized and he was buried in Accra
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
Du Bois attended a local public school and then continued to Great Barrington High School being the only black student there. He excelled in all years of his school life outshining his white counterparts. His mother who had been supporting him passed away in 1884 while he was in his final year of high school. She had been suffering from a stroke and when she passed away, Du Bois took up work as a correspondent for the New York Globe, New York Age, and the Springfield Republican to support his needs. He however graduated the same year and though he had always had a dream of going to Harvard, he attended Fisk University. His high school principal organized a scholarship through donations from the congregation at the church young Du Bois had attended, First Congregational Church of Great Barrington. The money paid for his tuition at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. This was a traditionally black college which he attended from 1885-1888.
Life at Fisk somewhat shaped the life journey of Du Bois. Here he encountered students whose parents were former slaves and had been oppressed but had cultivated a spiritual and cultural tradition like his own. During his summer holidays, he worked at a school, teaching black students in the countryside of East Tennessee. Through all these experiences he gained an understanding into the complexities and depths of racism. He thus decided that his life would be dedicated to a fight against economic and racial oppression of the blacks. To do this he was determined to first reach great heights in his education.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree at Fisk in 1888, he was offered a scholarship to Harvard University. He graduated with his second bachelor’s degree in history in 1890. He had studied under William James and Albert Bushnell Hart and loved the model of science that could dismiss the racial discrimination that stood in the way of social justice for the blacks. In 1891, Du Bois was awarded a scholarship to study at the graduate school of sociology at Harvard completing his master’s degree the same year. In 1892 he was awarded a Slater Fund Fellowship for graduate studies at the University of Berlin. While in Germany he travelled widely throughout Europe and also gained intellectually from prominent social scientists such as Adolph Wagner and Gustav von Schmoller. His stay in Berlin enabled him to carry his scientific ideals on his return to the United States. He became one of initial persons to initiate scientific sociological study in the US. He also completed his graduate studies.
Du Bois was awarded a doctorate by Harvard University in 1895 being the first African American to receive the Ph.D. from Harvard. He wrote his doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 reflecting his new direction on analyzing the socio-economic situation of the African American. This thesis remains an authoritative work on the subject and was published in the first volume of Harvard’s Historical Series.
WORK
In 1894 Du Bois accepted a job to teach Greek, German, Latin and English at Wilberforce University, Ohio. In 1896 he accepted a job as a Sociology instructor at the University of Pennsylvania during which he would carry out a one-year research in Philadelphia’s slums. This gave him the chance to study blacks’ social system and his findings were published in a social study The Philadelphia Negro in 1899. In 1897, Du Bois became a professor of History and Economics at Atlanta University. He hosted Atlanta Studies of Negro Problems annually and prepared reports on African- American culture and workforce funded by the US government.
Du Bois resigned from Atlanta University in 1910 and accepted a job as the Director of Publicity and Research for NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). His work here was to be an editor of the Association’s monthly magazine which he called The Crisis. Du Bois had differences from 1931 with Walter Francis White who was the president of NAACP and also due to the Great Depression felt that his editorial position was at risk. He thus quit as an editor and in 1933 took up a position at Atlanta University. There was also a dispute in NAACP when Du Bois said that African American goal was to be separate but equal and this dispute led to him resigning from NAACP.
In 1943, Rufus Clement the president at Atlanta University terminated Du Bois employment there. This sparked a lot of outrage from scholars and Du Bois was given the title of professor emeritus and offered a lifetime pension. Afterwards, he returned to NAACP and was given the position of Director of the Department of Special Research. The Federal Bureau of Investigations was investigating communist supporters and though NAACP distanced itself from communists, Du Bois associated with communist supporters. This forced him to choose to resign from NAACP in 1948. He then accepted a job writing for the National Guardian a weekly newspaper where he worked up to 1961. In October 1961 Du Bois took up residence in Ghana to work on a project to create the Encyclopedia Africana. The project was funded by the government of Ghana and Dubois worked on it until his demise on 27th August 1963.
SOCIOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS & CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM
THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO
This was the first sociological study of African- Americans. The study was carried out in Philadelphia seventh- ward slums providing an in- depth sociological analysis and interpretation on the urban life of the African-American. Du Bois made a house to house investigation of the colored settlements surveying the population, investigating their occupations, health status, population data, the family life, crime, religion, education levels, interracial associations and social life. In the study Du Bois incorporated science to analyse his findings. Du Bois concluded that both blacks and whites were responsible for the poor race relations in America. This study was important in sociology for it offered an analysis of black social problems
W.E.B. DU BOIS AND BOOKER T. WASHINGTON AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO BLACK EDUCATION
Booker T. Washington was the most famous African American founder of Tuskegee University and a friend to Du Bois. The two however differed in terms of ideologies. Washington in his famous speech “Atlanta Compromise” in 1895 argued that the African-Americans should forego higher education, political power, and civil rights and instead concentrate on industrial education thus accepting a second class status. Du Bois on the other hand challenged Washington’s philosophy of accommodation arguing that African- Americans should pursue higher education so as to achieve equality and thus enjoy civilization and also manage to educate their fellow blacks and be fit as leaders. Du Bois criticized Washington’s concept of Industrial education in his publication of 1903 The Souls of Black Folk .
THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK: ‘DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS’ AND THE ‘VEIL’
In this book Du Bois uses the concept of Double Consciousness and the Veil to discuss his theory on race, Double consciousness was an elementary component of the blacks’ experience in America. African-Americans see themselves both as they are and also as they are seen by whites through racial prejudice thus having a dual self-perception which bring about a conflict in their lives and hindering self-development. The Veil is an imaginary barrier separating blacks and whites also discussed in his work Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (Goodman &Ritzer, 2003). The veil suggests that the darker skin of the black which for the Americans acts as a physical distinction portraying the difference between them. The veil distorts the perceptions of those looking through it in either direction. Du Bois hoped to lift the veil through his work for white readers to see really how life was for the blacks. These concepts of the ‘veil’ and “double consciousness” have ever since, been used by sociologists as tools of analysis when studying racism and other forms of social prejudice. Darkwater also contains aspects of feminism in the essay “The Damnation of Women” homage to the value and dignity of women especially black women. In Darkwater, Du Bois discusses the concept of ‘second sight’ where he purports that African Americans due to their double consciousness have a privileged perspective understand the white world and also see it from an angle of an outsider.
NIAGARA MOVEMENT
Du Bois joined other black American civil rights activists in 1905 at Niagara Falls, Canada and they declared and wrote principles opposing the “Atlanta Compromise”. The group called themselves the Niagara movement in 1906. Their ideals were published in Moon Illustrated Weekly magazine owned by Du Bois and later in The Horizon: A Journal of the Color Line. In 1906, President Teddy Roosevelt discharged 167 black soldiers and black men who were accused of assaulting women leading to riots in Atlanta where 25 blacks died. This marked the fall of the Atlanta Compromise as Du Bois affirmed that despite them upholding their end of the bargain they did not receive justice and this led to the rise of his vision of equality.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP)
In 1909, members of the Niagara Movement joined some liberal whites creating NAACP. Du Bois served as the Director of Publications and Research working as the chief editor of its monthly Crisis magazine. Crisis investigated the existing racial evils and ways to deal with or ultimately stop them. The magazine’ editorials dealt with a variety of matters affecting the black community and in 1911, it tried to push the Federal government to prohibit lynching which had long been a vice employed by the white communities, killing large numbers of black minorities. Du Bois also praised the ideals of unionized labor but rebuked the racism shown as blacks were never included as members of such unions. Du Bois endorsed various leaders who promised to support the black cause such Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential race but they never fulfilled their promises. In 1913, his editorial work covered the subject of interracial marriage, as a supporter of women’s rights he felt that the subject was a women rights issue as the laws forbid white men from marrying black women and this belittles colored women.
THE NEGRO AND RACISM
Du Bois in 1915 published The Negro which contained the history of black people which disputed claims that blacks were inferior and envisioned solidarity and unity for black people around the world forming the basis for the Pan- African Movement. Racism was widespread as most government agencies only employed whites and the Army only placed blacks at subservient roles. The immigration department also barred immigration of Africans. Du Bois published editorials against discharge of blacks from public service and also against lynching.
In 1917, Joel Spingarn one of the NAACP members started a camp training black Americans who could serve as officers in the military during the First World War. The camp sparked controversies both among whites and blacks but the Army offered 1000 position for black officers, over 600 who would be from the camp. During the war blacks from the southern states moved north to work in industries there. Du Bois wrote in support of this move as he felt it would increase their economic chance and reduce racism by helping them to be incorporated into the white community. St. Louis industry hired blacks to act in place of white workers who were on strike leading to the East St. Louis Riot where between 40 and 250 blacks were killed. Du Bois reported on the massacre and organized the Silent Parade where about 9000 blacks matched in New York demonstrating for their public rights.
PAN-AFRICANISM
After the war Black veterans came back to the same racist country they had fought so heroically to defend. In 1919, Du Bois organized a Pan-African Congress in Paris. In 1921, he attended the second Pan-African Congress and resolutions were established guided by Du Bois for racial equality and that Africa would be ruled by Africans. During the fifth congress, Du Bois was elected as its international president and labeled the Father of Pan –Africanism.
COMMUNISM
Du Bois believed that capitalism was the cause of the defeat of colored people all over the world. He thus upheld communism as a probable solution to racial predicament. His theory was that economics and social class increased segregation and social divide. He argued that focusing on economic success had led to the dismissal of black education, morality and leadership. Du Bois thus advocated Marxism as the only way that blacks would achieve equality. Du Bois even joined the communist party in the early 1960’s and lived these principles until his death.
RELIGION
Apart from attending church in his early childhood, Du Bois was not involved in organized religion. He criticized African American churches feeling that they did not support the efforts of activists and hindered the achievement of the goals of racial equality. He however infused religion into his writings such as when at the crisis he used religious festivals and religion to reflect the political realities at the time. He used the birth of Christ to advocate for equal opportunity and justice for all races .
CONCLUSION
Du Bois was as a leader of the African-American struggle for racial equality and justice advocated several ideologies in the study of racism and the social problems that resulted. These ideologies such as scientific perspective in sociological study, double consciousness, second sight, the veil and the influence of economics in racism are still reflected in today’s world and have formed a basis for the study of racism and other forms of racial prejudices in society.
REFERENCES
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MAJOR NON-FICTION WORKS BY W.E.B. DU BOIS
The suppression of the African Slave Trade (Ph.D. dissertation 1896)
The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
John Brown: A Biography (1909)
Atlanta University’s Studies of the Negro Problem (1897-1910)
The Negro (1915)
Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil (1920)
The Gift of Black Folk (1924)
Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Black Folk, Then and Now (1939)
Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1940)
Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (1945)
The Encyclopedia of the Negro (1931-1946)
The World and Africa (1946)
