W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963)

In my last year of college I was part of an capstone class for my concentration in archival studies. It was a great class, mostly for the passion of my peers, and it was here that I was introduced more fully to W.E.B. Du Bois. A girl was interested in making a digital project around Mr. Du Bois' letters and the music in this book, and it was just kind of amazing to watch. My college was pretty stereotypically "left" in all the cringey, performative ways white upper-middle class young women show more tend to be, and becoming acquainted with this book through a random band nerd's love of it was just... amazing. There was no ulterior motive. She just loved Du Bois and his writing.

It took me over a read to get to but I'm really glad I did. The Souls of Black Folk is a collection of essays on the current state of Black America. It struck me as a sort of "State of the Union", recounting both the accomplishments of Black Americans but also the great challenges that lay ahead. I have a thing for hundred-year-old books that are eerily prescient, and this book was (unfortunately, in this case) that. Du Bois charts the history and failure of Reconstruction, takes some jabs at Booker T. Washington, reminisces of his days teaching Black youth in the South and the later loss of his son--and my personal favorite--an ethnography-of-sorts of the Black Belt. DuBois tells the reader:

If you wish to ride with me you must come into the “Jim Crow Car.” There will be no objection,—already four other white men, and a little white girl with her nurse, are in there. Usually the races are mixed in there; but the white coach is all white. Of course this car is not so good as the other, but it is fairly clean and comfortable. The discomfort lies chiefly in the hearts of those four black men yonder—and in mine.

It's been nearly three weeks since I finished this, and yeah. I just can't stop thinking about that paragraph. There are a lot of parts that fill that uncomfortable prophetic space, none more so than

Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape. [...] Thus grew up a double system of justice, which erred on the white side by undue leniency and the practical immunity of red-handed criminals, and erred on the black side by undue severity, injustice, and lack of discrimination.

One last point: Du Bois' prose is particularly impressive. His grasp of Classical culture and literature are apparent, and his vocabulary, figures of speech, and general artistry of writing are really bar none. It made reading it definitely a bit more laborious (I just wanted a beach read!), but it will stick with me, if not for the craft for the meta-irony of it all. We are slowly coming to realize (I hope) the fabrication of the classical canon as a sort of test of intelligence, and it's... so apparent in how DuBois comports himself in his work. I think he is very aware of the contrived quality of his writing as a sort of advertisement for educated whites to his Talented Tenth theory.

Here's her project by the way. I miss that class a lot. show less

A sometimes curious collection of writing from W.E.B. Du Bois, first published in 1920 and consisting of political essays, autobiographical content, allegorical poetry, and short stories, republished in 2022 by Flame Tree 451 rather oddly in their “Essential Gothic, Science Fiction & Dark Fantasy” series, complete with a useless glossary of Victorian terms. It’s at its best when Du Bois writes of his life and speaks such searing truth about racism, capitalistic excess, and world show more events, but it’s tortured and rather overwrought when he ventures into poetry and fiction. If I were to re-read it, or recommend it, I would say to simply skip this latter stuff.

Du Bois’ non-fiction essays were like a beacon at a time when America was mired in the nadir of race relations; this was a time of lynchings, massacres, segregation, sundown towns, and the President enthusiastically watching The Birth of a Nation in the White House. He is insightful and presages the rise of White Nationalism and Hitler in his brilliant chapter The Souls of White Folk. He points out America’s hypocrisy in making the “World Safe for Democracy” and condemning Germany for things like the Rape of Belgium in 1918 when it was committing its own atrocities all over the country. He criticizes colonialism and the teaching of world history in ways that are skewed towards white people and Western European nations. He speaks up for the working man against greedy businessmen, and points out the irony of white blue collar workers thinking their black counterparts were the enemy. He speaks up for women, and black women in particular. A great deal of it is still highly relevant today.

Du Bois was very well read and abreast of current events, which he often references without full explanation. A better modern edition would have included footnotes for the reader, but I didn’t mind pausing to look things up as I went. Reading The Shadow of Years had me referencing the lynching of Sam Hose in 1899, Of Work and Wealth spurs a reading on the massacres of black people in East St. Louis over May-July 1917, and The Second Coming the May 1918 lynchings and horrifying brutality in Valdosta Georgia (including to Mary Turner and her unborn baby).

On a lighter note, The Immortal Child had me sampling composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s works. And in one of his more extraordinary moments, after describing a litany of ways everyday racism may be encountered in Of Beauty and Death, he points out that “we cannot forget that this world is beautiful,” which gave me goosebumps.

Just this quote, on the wealth gap:
“Thus the shadow of hunger, in a world which never needs to be hungry, drives us to war and murder and hate. But why does hunger shadow so vast a mass of men? Manifestly because in the great organizing of men for work a few of the participants come out with more wealth than they can possibly use, while a vast number emerge with less they can decently support life. In earlier economic stages we defended this as the reward of Thrift and Sacrifice, and the punishment of Ignorance and Crime. To this the answer is sharp: Sacrifice calls for no such reward and Ignorance deserves no such punishment.” show less

Hakim Adi's selection of writings about Britain (mainly England) by Black people of the late 18th to the early 20th century is carefully chosen to establish their presence in all strata of society at a date earlier than certain commentators would wish it known. There's a thread showing the development of abolitionism into emancipation into supremacism to justify the continued exploitation of Black Labour, and Adi's selections often strongly resonate with current issues, such as the Windrush show more scandal and the illegal Tory Rwanda deportation policy.

There's also many fascinating glimpses into Georgian and Victorian society and, while varying degrees of racism are noted, many of the impressions of visitors to the island are positive about their reception and of the culture in which they find themselves.

A nuanced and balanced selection of historical testimonies which I thoroughly enjoyed reading, not least the short section on John Ocansey's day trip from Liverpool to my home town of Southport 🏖️ show less

note: I read a different edition, but the app isn't letting me pick which edition.

du Bois has been criticised for both elitism and sexism, and I can see why. But even for me, who does not forgive those flaws lightly, the work outshines it's failings.

this book is rightly one of the foundational texts of Africans studies, but it should be an equally foundational text in AMERICAN studies. it lays out, beautifully and convincingly, the reality of two Americas, existing side-by-side and the show more duality of experience of black Americans.

More than once this book moved me to tears, but more it opened my eyes to things I had heard of but never fully understood. show less