Du Bois

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Reiland Rabaka. Du Bois

Table of Contents

Guide

Pages

Series Title. Key Contemporary Thinkers Series includes:

Du Bois. A Critical Introduction

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Du Bois’s Lifework

Abbreviated biography, embryonic intersectionality, and early interdisciplinarity

From reformist to radical to revolutionary

Notes

1 The Philadelphia Negro: Early Work and the Inauguration of American Sociology. Du Bois’s urban sociology:The Philadelphia Negro

Du Bois’s sociology of “A City Within a City”:The Philadelphia Negroand the racialization of the city

The “talented few” and the “submerged tenth”: Du Bois’s concept of racially oppressed and economically exploited social classes

Du Bois’s sociology of the urban African American family: black bourgeois patriarchy, white middle-class morality, and the burden of black women’s sexuality

Du Bois’s methodological innovations and interpretive limitations inThe Philadelphia Negro

Notes

2 The Souls of Black Folk: Critique of Racism and Contributions to Critical Race Studies. Introduction to black folk’s souls

“The strange meaning of being black”

“The two worlds within and without the Veil”

“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line”

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others”

“[T]he Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world”

“We have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours”

Du Bois,The Souls of Black Folk,and the prelude to “The Souls of White Folk”

Notes

3 “The Souls of White Folk”: Critique of White Supremacy and Contributions to Critical White Studies. Introduction: “The Souls of White Folk,”The Souls of Black Folk, and critical social theory of white supremacy

The Souls of Black Folk’s contributions to critical white studies:Du Bois’s critical social theory of the souls of white folk inThe Souls of Black Folk

“The Souls of White Folk[’s]” contributions to critical white studies: Du Bois’s critical social theory of the souls of white folk in “The Souls of White Folk”

Conclusion: Du Bois, critical white studies, and critical social theory of white supremacy

Notes

4 “The Damnation of Women”: Critique of Patriarchy, Contributions to Black Feminism, and Early Intersectionality. Introduction: Du Bois’s inchoate intersectionalism

Du Bois, damnation, and women: “The Damnation of Women” and the advent of intersectional thought

“No modern nation can shut the gates of opportunity in the face of its women, its peasants, its laborers, or its socially damned”: Du Bois’s African American women-centered and intersectional conception of democracy

“The soul of womanhood”: Du Bois on African American women’s central role in the revolutions against racism, sexism, and capitalism

Notes

5 Black Reconstruction: Critique of Capitalism, Contributions to Black Marxism, and Discourse on Democratic Socialism. Introduction: From Black Reformism to Black Radicalism

Du Bois’s inchoate critique of capitalism

“One of the most extraordinary experiments of Marxism that the world, before the Russian Revolution, had seen”:Black Reconstructionand the emergence of black Marxism

On ruling races and ruling classes: Du Bois’s unorthodox, independent anti-racist Marxism

The radicalization of democracy and the democratization of socialism: Du Bois’s discourse on democratic socialism

“Espous[ing] the cause of opponents of Wall Street and the Pentagon”: Du Bois and the despotic communism of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung

Notes

Conclusion: Du Bois’s Legacy

Du Bois the reformist, Du Bois the radical, Du Bois the revolutionary

Notes

Index

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Reiland Rabaka

I am grateful to students, colleagues, and comrades throughout the years who have contributed in important ways to the research, writing, and revision of this book. I would be remiss if I did not offer my sincere gratitude to the editorial team at Polity Press, especially George Owers and Julia Davies, who supported my vision for an accessible but critical introduction to Du Bois’s sprawling oeuvre. Lastly, I thank my friends and family for their support during the many years it took me to research, write, and revise this book. If I were to sincerely say thank you a thousand times (asante sana, na gode sosai, daalụ nke ukwuu, ke leboha haholo, ndokutenda zvikuru, aad ayaad u mahadsantahay, hatur nuhun pisan, enkosi kakhulu, o ṣeun pupọ, ngibona kakhulu, etc.), I would not have thanked each of you enough. Ubuntu – I am because we are.

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Without question, an eclectic but consistently intersectional combination of ideas and interests unfolds across the landscape of Du Bois’s life and work. In fact, each of the subsequent chapters of this book loosely corresponds with a major intersectional category (except for sexuality) and exposes readers to his incipient intersectionality. For example – and as will be discussed in chapter 1, “The Philadelphia Negro: Early Work and the Inauguration of American Sociology” – Du Bois was one of the very first empirical social scientists in the US, and The Philadelphia Negro provides both a history and sociology of the interconnections between race and class (i.e., the racialization of class) in black life and culture. Additionally, the chapter details the pitfalls of Du Bois’s early efforts to use social science in the interest of social reform. Chapters 2 and 3 reveal Du Bois to be one of the most critical, contradictory, and controversial race theorists of the twentieth century. More specifically, the second chapter, “The Souls of Black Folk: Critique of Racism and Contributions to Critical Race Studies,” analyzes Du Bois’s 1903 classic, The Souls of Black Folk, for its contribution to the study and critique of race, anti-black racism, and critical race studies. Chapter 3, “‘The Souls of White Folk’: Critique of White Supremacy and Contributions to Critical White Studies,” essentially inverts the framework from the previous chapter and provides a survey of Du Bois’s work on whiteness, critique of white supremacy, and contributions to what is currently called critical white studies. Chapter 4, “‘The Damnation of Women’: Critique of Patriarchy, Contributions to Black Feminism, and Early Intersectionality,” treats Du Bois’s critique of patriarchy (i.e., male supremacy) and contributions to black feminism and early intersectionality. Finally, chapter 5, “Black Reconstruction: Critique of Capitalism, Contributions to Black Marxism, and Discourse on Democratic Socialism,” explores Du Bois’s Marxist thought and developing democratic socialism via several of his key essays that synthesize elements of black economic nationalism with Marxism. The centerpiece of chapter 5 is Du Bois’s black Marxist magnum opus Black Reconstruction, which was arguably the first application of Marxian concepts to African American enslavement and blacks’ pivotal roles in the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Along with his contributions to the origins and evolution of intersectionality, this book explores Du Bois’s contributions to interdisciplinarity – the practice of bringing the scholarship of two or more academic disciplines together to answer a research question or provide solutions to a problem. Du Bois’s collective coursework at Fisk University, Harvard University, and the University of Berlin was incredibly interdisciplinary, and resulted in a BA in classics from Fisk in 1888; a BA in philosophy from Harvard in 1890; an MA in history from Harvard in 1891; doctoral studies in history, economics, politics, and political economy at the University of Berlin between 1892 and 1894; and, ultimately, a Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1895.17 After earning his doctorate, Du Bois began his teaching career as a professor of classics, teaching Latin, Greek, German, and English, from 1894 to 1896 at Wilberforce University, an African Methodist Episcopal institution in Ohio. He unsuccessfully attempted to add sociology to the curriculum at Wilberforce in 1894, and left the school in frustration for the University of Pennsylvania in 1896, where he was hired as an “Assistant Instructor” to research and write a study on the African Americans of Philadelphia, the previously mentioned The Philadelphia Negro.18 At the University of Pennsylvania, however, Du Bois was still not free from frustration, writing in his autobiography, “I ignored my pitiful stipend” and “it goes without saying that I did no instructing, save once to pilot a pack of idiots through the Negro slums.”19 After his brief stay at the University of Pennsylvania, Du Bois accepted a position at Atlanta University, where he established one of the first sociology departments in the United States and edited 16 innovative interdisciplinary volumes known as the “Atlanta University Studies,” which were published by Atlanta University Press consecutively between 1898 and 1914.20

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