Heather Gray: Another Look at W.E.B. DuBois
[Heather Gray produces "Just Peace" on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and international news. She can be reached at hmcgray@earthlink.net ]
In a recent article posted on Counterpunch entitled "When Capitalists Get a Free Ride " (November 3-4, 2007) I made reference to W.E.B. Du Bois having joined and left the Communist Party in the mid-20th century due to his frustration over the lack of inclusion of a racial analysis or understanding. It is true that Du Bois spent considerable effort attempting to educate the white communists about racial oppression and became disenchanted with the party's organizing tactics, but I need to make a correction. A fairer assessment is that his views on communism and economic thought fluctuated and evolved over time. Du Bois, who was a profound student and proponent of Marxian thought and who was accused of being a communist, did not actually officially join the Communist Party until 1961 long after his trials in America on the issue. He was 93 years old at the time and leaving America to live in Ghana at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah. He died there in 1963. In this article I wanted to make that important correction and share some of his thoughts on Blacks and communism, and on economics. His views on economics are lessons many of us can look to today to grasp the meaning of exploitive capitalism and ideas to counter it.
Du Bois had received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895. He was one of the founders of the NAACP, the publisher and editor of the Crisis Magazine, and a prolific writer of essays and books including "The Souls of Black Folk" and "Black Reconstruction in America."
In David Levering Lewis's book "W.E.B. Du Bois: the fight for equality and the American century 1919-1963" he notes that in the early 1920's Du Bois was of the opinion that the Black community should not give up its struggles for justice in the American system for communist-based revolutionary changes if it was not inclusive of Blacks. He said that Blacks might look like proletariats and he agreed that they were part of the world proletariat community. However, racial discrimination within the Communist Party and a serious lack of understanding of how race and white supremacy played a role in economic greed did not allow for Blacks to fully participate. Why, in fact, should black workers be trustful of white workers? Why, he asked, should Blacks assume that among the "unlettered and suppressed" white masses there would be "a clearness of thought, a sense of human brotherhood, (that was) sadly lacking in the most educated classes?"
Levering continues that it was in 1931 that Du Bois "decided to undertake both a thorough immersion in the theory of Marxism and a methodical assessment of real-world implications of communism in the United States." This decision was largely made after the controversy surrounding the "Scottsboro Boys" highly profiled trial in Alabama in 1931 in which nine black men were alleged to have raped two white women. Du Bois was angry at the Communist Party's tactics in the case which was to recruit southern Blacks, such as sharecroppers, to demonstrate against the trial. Du Bois said, "American Negroes do not propose to be the shock troops of the Communist Revolution, driven out in front to death, cruelty and humiliation in order to win victories for white workers."
Du Bois' views on the role of Communism evolved over the years. His involvement in peace efforts after the Second World War and concerns about the U.S. plans to extend the Monroe Doctrine to the whole world (Pax Americana) led him to openly oppose the American imperial ventures. In 1946 Levering notes that Du Bois appeared before the World Youth Conference in 1946 in South Carolina where he addressed "850 black and white delegates and several hundred observers." Levering continues that Du Bois' comments became a fifteen page pamphlet which "was to become an instant classic of the left." ...
Read entire article at Counterpunch
In a recent article posted on Counterpunch entitled "When Capitalists Get a Free Ride " (November 3-4, 2007) I made reference to W.E.B. Du Bois having joined and left the Communist Party in the mid-20th century due to his frustration over the lack of inclusion of a racial analysis or understanding. It is true that Du Bois spent considerable effort attempting to educate the white communists about racial oppression and became disenchanted with the party's organizing tactics, but I need to make a correction. A fairer assessment is that his views on communism and economic thought fluctuated and evolved over time. Du Bois, who was a profound student and proponent of Marxian thought and who was accused of being a communist, did not actually officially join the Communist Party until 1961 long after his trials in America on the issue. He was 93 years old at the time and leaving America to live in Ghana at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah. He died there in 1963. In this article I wanted to make that important correction and share some of his thoughts on Blacks and communism, and on economics. His views on economics are lessons many of us can look to today to grasp the meaning of exploitive capitalism and ideas to counter it.
Du Bois had received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895. He was one of the founders of the NAACP, the publisher and editor of the Crisis Magazine, and a prolific writer of essays and books including "The Souls of Black Folk" and "Black Reconstruction in America."
In David Levering Lewis's book "W.E.B. Du Bois: the fight for equality and the American century 1919-1963" he notes that in the early 1920's Du Bois was of the opinion that the Black community should not give up its struggles for justice in the American system for communist-based revolutionary changes if it was not inclusive of Blacks. He said that Blacks might look like proletariats and he agreed that they were part of the world proletariat community. However, racial discrimination within the Communist Party and a serious lack of understanding of how race and white supremacy played a role in economic greed did not allow for Blacks to fully participate. Why, in fact, should black workers be trustful of white workers? Why, he asked, should Blacks assume that among the "unlettered and suppressed" white masses there would be "a clearness of thought, a sense of human brotherhood, (that was) sadly lacking in the most educated classes?"
Levering continues that it was in 1931 that Du Bois "decided to undertake both a thorough immersion in the theory of Marxism and a methodical assessment of real-world implications of communism in the United States." This decision was largely made after the controversy surrounding the "Scottsboro Boys" highly profiled trial in Alabama in 1931 in which nine black men were alleged to have raped two white women. Du Bois was angry at the Communist Party's tactics in the case which was to recruit southern Blacks, such as sharecroppers, to demonstrate against the trial. Du Bois said, "American Negroes do not propose to be the shock troops of the Communist Revolution, driven out in front to death, cruelty and humiliation in order to win victories for white workers."
Du Bois' views on the role of Communism evolved over the years. His involvement in peace efforts after the Second World War and concerns about the U.S. plans to extend the Monroe Doctrine to the whole world (Pax Americana) led him to openly oppose the American imperial ventures. In 1946 Levering notes that Du Bois appeared before the World Youth Conference in 1946 in South Carolina where he addressed "850 black and white delegates and several hundred observers." Levering continues that Du Bois' comments became a fifteen page pamphlet which "was to become an instant classic of the left." ...