THE HANDSTAND

OCTOBER 2003


Remembering
W.E.B. Du Bois
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
August 27, 2003

No nation threatens us.  We threaten the world.  W.E.B. Du Bois (1958)
commenting on the role of the United States internationally.

    While we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington, we should as well be commemorating another event.  On the eve of the 1963 March on Washington, the life of one of the 20th century s most brilliant individuals came to an end.  W.E.B. Du Bois scholar, Pan-Africanist, political
leader, champion of the struggle against white supremacy in the United States died in Ghana on August 27, 1963.

    It is easy to forget about Du Bois because an orchestrated effort has been conducted by the larger society to minimize his contributions and, in fact, to expunge him from our collective memory.  Beginning with the Cold War in the late 1940s, the US government and the right-wing went out of their way to harass Du Bois, restrict his travel and opportunities, and limit his access to those who wanted to or needed to hear his words.

    For us at TransAfrica Forum, the work and life of Du Bois was particularly significant because of his commitment to the struggle against racist discrimination at home as well as against imperialism and colonialism abroad.  Du Bois saw no inconsistency in taking up both struggles, usually at the same time.  Thus, Du Bois is acknowledged as the  father  of the modern Pan-African movement. He was directly involved in organizing and helping to lead the first five Pan-African Congresses.  He was also one of the leaders, along with the great Paul Robeson, of the Council on African Affairs, a US-based
advocacy group on Africa which was, in many ways, a political ancestor of TransAfrica Forum.  Du Bois was also a founder of the NAACP, editor of the NAACP s magazine, Crisis; and author of the monumental and definitive study, Black Reconstruction in America.

    Du Bois would probably have been heralded by the larger US establishment if he had restricted his criticisms to racial matters in the USA.  Dubois refused to be so constrained.  Du Bois s critique of US society expanded over time to examining the economic roots of racial oppression as well as his expansive analysis of Western colonialism and the US role in propping up colonial empires, allegedly in the name of fighting communism.

    Following World War II when the US came to the aid of various European colonial powers, in some cases reinforcing their domination, in other cases attempting to replace them, Du Bois was one of the courageous few who would not be silenced.  Du Bois saw that anti-communism and red-baiting were not aimed at stopping the spread of a totalitarian ideology, but rather were aimed at silencing any and all dissent from policies that advanced corporate
interests. For his recognition, the forces of repression came down upon him.

    Ultimately Du Bois chose to leave the US and reside in Ghana.  Before his death, he began work on an encyclopedia of the African world.  He did not
live to complete it.

    It is not enough for us to honor the memory of Du Bois, though that is itself important.  Reminding ourselves, and particularly younger activists and scholars, of the renown of such a human being has a value in and of itself.  Yet
for those who work with and support TransAfrica Forum, and other organizations committed to a democratic foreign policy on the part of the USA, the life and work of Du Bois has an additional value.  All too often, I hear people suggest that international events are too distant from the realities of the everyday person.  Du Bois repudiated such notions, suggesting instead that it is inconceivable that we, African Americans, can fight the good fight here in the US for social justice in isolation from the fight for what we now call global justice.  A system that would ignore the plague of HIV/AIDS as it ravages Africa and the Caribbean a system that would promote the interests of pharmaceutical corporations over those of the individuals living with HIV! /AIDS can never be expected to discover humanity in its treatment of those of African descent living in the USA.

    The reverse is also true.  As often as we attempt to illustrate our patriotism through volunteering to support US wars overseas, and other such adventures, we may achieve awards and note, but it brings us no closer to
achieving actual freedom, equality, and dignity at home.    To the extent to which we stand up for what is right rather than what the establishment deems to be popular, we regain our humanity.  If there is no other lesson to learn from the work and life of W.E.B. Du Bois, it is that one simple point.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the president of TransAfrica Forum, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organizing and educational center formed to raise awareness in the
USA regarding issues facing the nations and peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.  He can be reached at bfletcher@transafricaforum.org.
MY HERO
by Jennifer Beck

The first African American to earn a PhD. from Harvard, a founding member of the NAACP, and one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, W.E.B. DuBois' life-long fight for racial equality earned him a lasting and important place in this country's history.

William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868. His parents, Alfred and Mary DuBois, split up when he was quite young, and William worked in a factory to help make ends meet. Despite the demanding job, he was consistently at the top of his class and even published a story in the community's newspaper at the age of 14. At 15, W.E.B. DuBois became the first black child ever to graduate from Great Barrington High. It would be just one of many 'firsts' yet to come for the future political leader. Upon graduating, Dubois headed for Nashville, Tennessee, where he'd received a partial scholarship to Frisk University. In 1888 Dubois graduated and left for Europe to attend the University of Berlin, also on scholarship. Two years later Dubois found himself at Harvard where he earned a second B.A. then a Masters degree and finally his Ph.D., in 1895. He was the first black American ever to receive a Ph.D from Harvard, and his disertation, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America," is still considered an outstanding expample of historiography.

Having grown up in the North, DuBois had never experienced the extreme racism rampant in the South in that era. As a teacher at Atlanta University, he saw racism at its ugliest and most virulent. The cross burning and lynching carried out by such groups as the Ku Klux Klan enraged him. He took on the hate groups the best way he knew how - by using his mind. He taught classes and published papers and books that explored and confronted Southern society, hoping to bring about change through social science. During this time DuBois also married Nina Gomer, who would bear him two children, Yolande and Burghardt, who died at the age of three. DuBois expressed his sadness, rage and frustration over his son's death in what many consider his greatest work, "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903).

By the turn of the century, DuBois had grown frustrated with trying to fight racism through writing and teaching. He became an activist, touring the country and speaking out that racial equality should be immediate, not gradual. He encouraged agitation and protest and publicly criticized such black leaders as Booker T. Washington for not being radical enough. Many of the protests organized by DuBois turned violent. DuBois neither condoned nor condemned it.

In 1905, DuBois founded The Niagara Movement, a group of pioneering African American scholars and leaders that would eventually become The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). DuBois created and edited the NAACP journal, "The Crisis," from 1910 until he left the group in 1934.

Following his departure, DuBois moved steadily to the political left. He became involved with progressive socialist activists who blamed capitalism for the nation's racial inequality, calling it the true oppressor of African Americans. Before long, DuBois was being spied upon and even antagonized by an American government suspicious of his leftist leanings. When DuBois called upon the United Nations to hear crimes of the U.S. government against its own people, the U.S. government retaliated by indicting him under the McCarran Act. (McCarran was part of a long list of legislation aimed at curbing personal and intellectual freedoms.) With the help of his followers and various human rights organizations, DuBois was eventually cleared of the charges. And then, he cleared out of America.

In 1961 W.E.B. DuBois officially joined the Communist party and departed the United States never to return. Two years later he gave up his U.S. citizenship and became a citizen of Ghana. On August 27, 1963, William Edward Burghardt DuBois died at the age of 95. He was given a funeral fit for a head of state attended by dignitaries from around the world. The U.S. government, however, sent no one.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been quoted as saying "history cannot ignore W.E.B. Dubois." Recognition from the U.S. government or any other source had never been W.E.B. DuBois' goal. As DuBois himself said not long before his death, "Peace will be my reward." Written by Jennifer Beck