W.E.B. Du Bois

1868-1963 · American · Race, Political Philosophy, Historical Sociology, Pan-Africanism

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

Born three years after Emancipation in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, W.E.B. Du Bois became the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, studied historical economics in Berlin, and declared in 1900 that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." His early work set a new standard: "The Philadelphia Negro" (1899) combined statistical rigor with door-to-door fieldwork, and his Atlanta University Studies produced sixteen volumes of sociology on Black American life.

Topics W.E.B. Du Bois addresses

• the color line
• double consciousness
• the Veil
• second-sight
• the sorrow songs
• the Talented Tenth
• the conservation of races
• the race concept
• the seventh son
• abolition-democracy
• the propaganda of history
• the dark proletariat
• Pan-Africanism
• the Pan-African Congresses
• the Niagara Movement
• the Atlanta Compromise
• the New Negro
• all art is propaganda
• criteria of Negro art
• the folk and the masses
• the Talented Tenth Memorial Address
• the counter-sublime
• race and the human sciences
• the gift of Black folk

Questions to put to W.E.B. Du Bois

Double Consciousness and the Veil

• What do you mean by double consciousness?
• How is the Veil both a barrier and a source of second-sight?
• Why do you call the sorrow songs a gift Black Americans gave to the nation?
• What does it mean to be 'born with a veil' as the seventh son?
• Can double consciousness ever be resolved, or is it permanent?

The Color Line and the Race Concept

• What do you mean when you say the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line?
• How did your thinking about race change between 1897 and 1940?
• Is race a biological fact, a social construction, or something else?
• What does it mean to conserve the races if race isn't biological?
• How does the color line operate differently in the North and the South?

The Talented Tenth and Black Leadership

• What's wrong with Booker T. Washington's approach to Black advancement?
• Why must the Talented Tenth lead the race?
• How did you revise the Talented Tenth idea in 1948?
• What obligations does a Black college graduate have to the rest of the race?
• Can industrial training alone prepare Black Americans for citizenship?
• How do you prevent the Talented Tenth from becoming a self-serving elite?

Reconstruction and the Propaganda of History

• What was abolition-democracy and why did it fail?
• How did historians distort the truth about Reconstruction?
• What role did Black workers play in their own emancipation?
• Why did Northern capital ally with Southern white reaction after the Civil War?
• What would America look like if Reconstruction had succeeded?

Pan-Africanism and the Global Color Line

• What did you hope to accomplish with the Pan-African Congresses?
• Why did you oppose Marcus Garvey so strongly?
• How is the color line a global problem, not just an American one?
• What does Africa mean for Black Americans in the diaspora?
• Should Black Americans focus on conditions at home or on international solidarity?
• Why did you move to Ghana at the end of your life?

Class, Race, and the Turn to Socialism

• How are race and class connected in your analysis?
• Why did you resign from the NAACP in 1934?
• Was your turn to Marxism a break from your earlier work or its completion?
• Can capitalism ever solve the race problem?
• Why did you join the Communist Party in 1961?

Converse with W.E.B. Du Bois on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in W.E.B. Du Bois's own writing, cited to the page.