W.E.B. Du Bois, born on this day in 1868, was a seminal American intellectual, author, and socialist and civil rights activist who co-founded both the Niagra Movement and the NAACP. Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and, after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University.

Du Bois was a prolific author notable for his polemics against racism. Among his works are "The Souls of Black Folk", a collection of essays, and "Black Reconstruction in America", which challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that black people were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era. Du Bois was also a Pan-Africanist and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers.

Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. Because of this, he was spied upon by the U.S. government, who eventually indicted him for acting as an agent of a foreign state while advocating for nuclear disarmament. Notably, the NAACP did not support Du Bois during his trial, which ultimately failed to convict him.

Nevertheless, he chose to leave the US behind him and emigrated to Ghana, at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah, where he spent the rest of his life. He died on the eve of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, on August 27, 1963 in Accra, Ghana.

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." - W.E.B. Du Bois

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  • DirtbagVegan [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I'm tapping the sign.

    During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

    • smart Russian bald man
    • Tormato [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Who said that, Kruschev?

      That really sums up exactly how the ruling class operate: condemn, ridicule and renounce any and all revolutionary opposition. And when they’re safely 6ft under bring out all the bells and whistles to glorify them, after they’ve been sanitized for status quo consumption.

      Happened with Mandela, King, etc.

      But still hasn’t happened with Malcom , BP Party, etc.

      A radical revolutionary like King has been “deodorized” and subject to “Santa Claus-ification,” as Cornel West describes it.