W. E. B. Du Bois

From Philosopedia

Du Bois, W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt) (23 February 1868 - 27 August 1963)

DuBois, the American civil rights leader and author, ranks with Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr. as being among the greatest champions of African American rights and liberty. He co-founded (1909) the National Negro Committee which became (1910) the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In addition he edited the NAACP magazine, The Crisis, until 1932.

He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, one of fewer than 50 blacks out of a population of around 5,000. Relatively free of racism in his youth, upon attending Fisk College (now a university) from 1885 to 1888 he became aware of the serious race problems in the United States. At Harvard, his doctoral thesis was The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America.

On morals and religion, he wrote in his autobiography,

• My "morals" were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer, . . . I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war. I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be taught in the public schools.

Although Booker T. Washington argued that blacks should temporarily forego "political power, insistence on civil rights, and higher education of Negro youth," criticism of Washington's viewpoint by Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk led to their contempt for each other.

Du Bois, using The Crisis as his voice, spoke out against the Armed Forces refusal to let "colored folks" be inducted, and he spoke out for black officer training schools, demanding legal action against lynchers, and setting up a federal work plan for returning veterans. An activist, he stirred emotions from all directions.

In 1961, he joined the Communist party, moving to Ghana, where he directed production of a multivolume Encyclopedia Africana and adopted Ghanian citizenship. When seventeen and in a missionary college where religious orthodoxy was stressed, Du Bois found he was quite capable of meeting the orthodoxy

• with argument, which I did. My “morals” were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hide-bound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a “believer” in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a Freethinker.

According to David Howard-Pitney, Du Bois’s

• basic philosophical and ethical position was internally consistent, even though he combined a scientific intellect with an idealistic, poetic soul. On the one hand, he was an empiricist-materialist who turned reflexively to naturalistic understandings and explanations of human behavior. He was thus attracted to ‘scientific socialism’ and the Marxist idea that history is determined by economic forces. Du Bois was not religious in any traditional sense; indeed he was something of an anticleric. At the same time, he believed in a creative force directing the universe and in the immortality of the soul, and there was an undeniably spiritual dimension to Du Bois’ imagination and expression. . . . ‘Love is God and Work is His prophet,’ he declared. ‘We make the world better by the gift of our service and our selves. So in some mystic way does God bring realization [of a better world] through sacrifice.'

Howard-Pitney states that Du Bois relied heavily upon biblical language, finding religious symbols and nomenclature “deeply expressive of his own highest hopes and longings.” Although he recognized the black church’s role, according to Howard-Pitney, Du Bois “was a humanist and a rationalist, not a theist or a supernaturalist. Antirational dogma repelled him, and he ceased participating in organized worship as a young adult.”

DuBois became a member of the British Humanist Association.

Among his witty observations are the following:

• The kind of sermon which is preached in most colored churches is not today attractive to even fairly intelligent men.

• The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon “hell and damnation.” . . . We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. . . . Our present method of periodic revival [involves] the hiring of professional and loud-mouthed evangelists and reducing people to a state of frenzy or unconsciousness.

• Half the Christian churches of New York are trying to ruin the free public schools in order to replace them by religious dogma.

{AAH, David Howard-Pitney; CE; FFRF; TYD}