Copyright 2019. ABC-CLIO.All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. EAABNcS:cC oO2u 2nP4tu9:b2 l7si68s 9h;8i 9nC9gh8 a4:r. imesaBsioeno .kBe uhCroodsletlne-cSttieolnl y(,E BGSeCrOahlods tH)o r-n ep.r;i nWt.eEd. Bo.n D5u/ 6B/o2i0s2:1 A2 :L4i8f eP Mi nv iAam eUrNiIcVa nO FH iCsHtIoCrAyGO W.E.B. Du Bois W.E.B. Du Bois A LIFE IN AMERICAN HISTORY Charisse Burden-Stelly and Gerald Horne Black History Lives Copyright © 2019 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Burden-Stelly, Charisse, author. | Horne, Gerald, author. Title: W.E.B. Du Bois : a life in American history / Charisse Burden-Stelly and Gerald Horne. Description: First edition. | Santa Barbara, California : ABC-CLIO, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2019] | Series: Black history lives | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019017435 (print) | LCCN 2019019970 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440864971 (eBook) | ISBN 9781440864964 (print : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. | African Americans—Biography. | African American authors—Biography. | African American intellectuals—Biography. | African American civil rights workers—Biography. | Intellectuals—United States—Biography. | Civil rights workers—United States—Biography. | African Americans—Civil rights—History. Classification: LCC E185.97.D73 (ebook) | LCC E185.97.D73 B87 2019 (print) | DDC 323.092 [B] —dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017435 ISBN: 978-1-4408-6496-4 (print) 978-1-4408-6497-1 (ebook) 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. ABC-CLIO An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 www.abc-clio.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America Contents Series Foreword vii Preface ix Chapter 1 A Life Beginning 1 Chapter 2 A Life of Excellence 19 Chapter 3 A Life of Protest 35 Chapter 4 A Life of Creation 51 Chapter 5 A Life of Pathways 67 Chapter 6 A Life of Conflict 83 Chapter 7 A Life in the Talented Tenth 99 Chapter 8 A Life of Departure 115 v vi Contents Chapter 9 A Life in Wartime 131 Chapter 10 A Life of Radicalism 149 Chapter 11 A Life on Trial 165 Chapter 12 A Life of Redemption 181 Why W.E.B. Du Bois Matters 195 Timeline 211 Primary Documents 215 Bibliography 229 Index 243 Series Foreword The Black History Lives biography series explores and examines the lives of the most iconic figures in African-American history, with supplemen- tary material that highlights the subject’s significance in our contempo- rary world. Volumes in this series offer far more than a simple retelling of a subject’s life by providing readers with a greater understanding of the outside events and influences that shaped each subject’s world, from famil- ial relationships to political and cultural developments. Each volume includes chronological chapters that detail events of the subject’s life. The final chapter explores the cultural and historical signifi- cance of the individual and places their actions and beliefs within an over- all historical context. Books in the series highlight important information about the individual through sidebars that connect readers to the larger context of social, political, intellectual, and pop culture in American his- tory; a timeline listing significant events; key primary source excerpts; and a comprehensive bibliography for further research. vii Preface In 2009, Greenwood Press published Gerald Horne’s W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography as part of the Greenwood Biographies series. One of the most prolific historians of the twentieth century, Horne produced a rigorous and accessible addition to the trove of Du Bois biographies that includes Francis L. Broderick’s W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, Manning Marable’s W.E.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat, and David Levering Lewis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography. In W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History, I significantly refocus Horne’s 2009 volume to highlight Du Bois’s fundamental contributions to Black radical history. This substantial revision helps to elucidate why Du Bois remains one of the most relevant scholar-activists in modern history more than half a century after his transition. In the narrative itself, I draw on Du Bois’s own words and the work of contemporary progressive scholars to develop and expand upon key themes and movements in African-American history. These include share- cropping and debt peonage, the Negro Problem, race riots, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance. I also specify the unique effects of historical occurrences like World War I, the Great Depression, and anti- communism on African Americans. In addition, I provide detailed discus- sions about some of Du Bois’s most important intellectual and political contributions, including his challenges to ethnological discourse at the turn of the twentieth century, his support of women’s rights and equality, and his conceptualization of African Americans as a “nation within a nation.” I also situate Du Bois among other important, but often over- looked, Black radicals like Hubert Harrison, Louise Thompson Patterson, and Marvel Cooke. Taken together, these elaborations offer deeper insight into Du Bois’s life and times. Like other biographies in the Black History Lives biography series, I contribute a concluding chapter about Du Bois’s contemporary relevance ix