Lesson 9
W.E.B. Du Bois
Robert Wonser
SOC 368 – Classical Sociological Theory
Spring 2014
W.E.B. Du Bois
 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868 –
1963)
 Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts
 Privileged upbringing, PhD from Harvard
University
 The Philadelphia Negro (1899/1996)
 The Souls of Black Folk (1903/1996)
 Taught sociology at Atlanta University from
1897-1910)
Lesson 9: W.E.B. Du Bois, Classical
Sociological Theory
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W.E.B. Du Bois
Crucial in forming the Niagara Movement,
an interracial civil rights organization
interested in “abolition of all caste
distinctions based simply on race and
color.
NAACP in 1910, became its director of
Publications and Research
Founded NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis
3
Conflict with Booker T. Washington
 Washington regarded by many
white leaders as spokesman for
black America.
 Du Bois viewed him as far too
conservative and much too willing
to subordinate Negros to whites in
general and especially the
economy where they would be
trained to be and satisfied with
manual work.
4
America, Communism and Socialism
Early on believed racial problems could be
resolved peacefully within capitalism.
He lost faith though in capitalists and more
supportive of socialism.
Grew more radical still and drifted towards
communism.
Impressed with its operation in the Soviet
Union and China.
Moved to Ghana where he died in 1963.
5
Though certainly an activist he was also a
sociologist
Du Bois’ ideas meet criteria for
sociological theory:
Wide range of application (especially to issues
concerning minority groups)
Deal with the issue of race
Stood the test of time
6
Standpoint Theory
Like other feminists and multicultural
theorists, he didn’t make grand theories
but instead relied on a form of standpoint
theory.
The perspective with which he wrote was
that of black Americans.
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Science
 Although most of his work wasn’t considered
scientific, he like Spencer, Comte, and
Durkheim, was a strong believer in and
advocate of science, especially the social
scientific study of race.
 Attempted to be “value-free” in the Philadelphia
Negro where he utilized statistical information,
history and the current status of negroes in the
7th ward.
 He allowed the data and the people to speak for
themselves.
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Though, later on, he wrote about issues
with increasing passion and anger—
anything but value free.
But still argued for and believed in
dispassionate scientific study of race
relations.
“one could not be calm, cool and detached
scientist while Negroes were lynched,
murdered and starved.” (Du Bois 1968:253)
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Du Bois and “New” Social Theory
 Work mirrored later work of the feminists,
multicultural theorists and postmodernists in
critique and tone.
 Standpoint theory
 Critical of the “value-free” perspective – who has
such a view?
 The new theories/theorists argued for theories
that self-consciously looked at the social world
from the standpoint of such minority groups.
 Building on Marx’s view from the proletariat’s
standpoint.
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Du Bois offered a view of society from the
standpoint of minorities and especially
black Americans.
Being black gives observers the ability to
see what whites cannot: “We who are dark
can see America in a way that white
Americans cannot” (Du Bois,
1926/1995a:509)
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From “The Souls of White Folk”
 “Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through
them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a
foreigner do I come, for I am native, not foreign, bone of their
thought and flesh of their language. Mine is not the knowledge
of the traveler or the colonial composite of dear memories,
words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge that which
servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of
artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the
back and side. I see the working of their entrails. I know their
thoughts and they know that I know. This knowledge makes
them now embarrassed, now furious. They deny my right to
live and be and call me mis-birth! My word is to them mere
bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach
and strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at
rags of facts and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go
twisting, flying by my tired eyes and I see them ever
stripped,—ugly, human. “
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Rejection of general theories and greater
appreciation of local theories.
Did not endeavor to create a grand theory
of society, instead focused more narrowly
on race and race relations.
A general theory was another illusion of
modernist thinking.
Rejection of value-free thinking.
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Du Bois as Modernist
1) He believed in science
2) For most of his life he believed in
progress, especially for black Americans,
even though it was being thwarted by
whites
3) Bought into socialism and later
communism (examples of grand
narratives).
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Studying Race Scientifically: The
Philadelphia Negro
Du Bois did his own fieldwork.
His focus was done as though it were
done today.
Geographic origins of the population, marriage
and the family, education (and illiteracy), work,
the church, housing and community, and
politics and voting.
Largely descriptive and unguided by
theoretical perspective and doesn’t end up
with a broad theoretical conclusion.
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The Philadelphia Negro
Had a contemporary sense of important
issues, especially time, space and their
intersection.
Critical blame placed on whites for
subordinating the efforts of blacks to
advance but also critical of blacks’
contribution (like going to white physicians
and lawyers instead of black).
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Regarding work and occupations held be
Negroes
 Low status resulted from:
1) Lack of previous training leading to low work
related efficiency
2) Competition from white immigrants
3) Industrial changes leading to replacement of
small businesses with large businesses blacks
were unprepared for
4) Wide ranging discrimination on the basis of
race.
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Social Inequality: Caste and Class
 Class system:
 Grade 1 – respectable families earning enough
to live well
 Grade 2 – respectable working class with steady
paying work
 Grade 3 – the poor and very poor without steady
income
 Grade 4 – “the lowest class of criminals,
prostitutes and loafers’ the ‘submerged tenth’”
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 Paid a lot of attention on the elites of society
(don’t forget his background…)
 White elites should help blacks.
 “polite and sympathetic” and “generous” to
negroes.
 “The Talented Tenth” described the top that
were the leaders of the Negro community. Later
gave way to the “Guiding Hundredth” and had to
be willing to “sacrifice and plan such economic
revolution in history and just distribution of
wealth, as would make the rise of our group
possible.” (Du Bois, 1948/1995:350).
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“The Benevolent Despot”
The benevolent despot is often a
benevolent capitalist.
Was a reflection of Du Bois’ faith in whites,
white leaders and capitalism.
Thought they could help, but also didn’t let
blacks off the hook an said main
movement must come from black people.
This hope in the benevolent despot didn’t
last long…
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Appeal to White Self-Interest
 Du Bois often sought to improve the situation for
blacks by appealing to white self-interest.
 Whites as well as the whole of society would benefit
from black educational and economic advancement as
well as an amelioration of problems within the black
community.
 Whites unwilling to recognize this? “one of the great
postulates in the science of economics—that men will
seek their economic advantage—is in this case
untrue.”
 “Such discrimination is morally wrong, politically
dangerous, industrially wasteful, and socially silly. It is
the duty of whites to stop it, and to do so primarily for
their own sakes.”
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On Race
 “The discovery of personal whiteness among the
world's peoples is a very modern thing,—a nineteenth
and twentieth century matter, indeed. The ancient
world would have laughed at such a distinction. The
Middle Age regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and
even up into the eighteenth century we were
hammering our national manikins into one, great,
Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color
and race even more than birth. Today we have
changed all that, and the world in a sudden, emotional
conversion has discovered that it is white and by that
token, wonderful!” from The Souls of White Folk
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Racialism and Race Pride
 Argues that the “race idea” is “the central
thought of all history”
 Race: “a family of human beings, generally of
common blood and language, always of
common history, traditions and impulses, who
are both voluntarily and involuntarily striving
together for the accomplishment of certain more
or less vividly conceived ideals of life.”
 Argues that Negroes are superior to whites, and
it is their role to “soften” the hardness of the
“twisted white American environment”
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Racialism and Race Pride
Race was at the base of what Du Bois
called “the negro problem” or the frictions
between the races in America.
In spite of focus on race, he recognized
there were no “pure” races and that the
vast majority of the differences between
the races stemmed from differences in
their social environment.
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The Veil
 The veil is a clear separation, a barrier, between
Negroes and whites.
 The imagery is not one of a wall, but rather a
porous material through which each race can
see the other.
 Easy to see through, but clearly separates the
races.
 Can be lifted, ventured behind and let white
readers glimpse the “souls” of Negroes in
America.
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 Leaving, then, the white world, I have stepped within
the Veil, raising it that you may view faintly its deeper
recesses,--the meaning of its religion, the passion of
its human sorrow, and the struggle of its greater souls.
All this I have ended with a tale twice told but seldom
written, and a chapter of song.
 Some of these thoughts of mine have seen the light
before in other guise. For kindly consenting to their
republication here, in altered and extended form, I
must thank the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, The
World's Work, the Dial, The New World, and the
Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science. Before each chapter, as now printed,
stands a bar of the Sorrow Songs,--some echo of
haunting melody from the only American music which
welled up from black souls in the dark past. And,
finally, need I add that I who speak here am bone of
the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that live within
the Veil? (Du Bois, 1903/1996:xxiv)
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The Veil
As something that shuts blacks out from
the rest of the world and within which they
live
As something that blacks are born with
Falls or is between blacks and whites
Something that affects they ways negroes
and whites see each other
Hangs between Negroes and opportunity
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The Veil
Through education and truth it is possible
to “dwell above the veil”
Dwell above the veil in death
Negatively affects whites and blacks
Impoverishes them in many ways
including their souls
Something he hopes will be lifted in order
to “set the prisoned free”
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 "And then--the Veil, the Veil of color. It drops as drops
the night on southern seas--vast, sudden, unanswering.
There is Hate behind it, and Cruelty and Tears. As one
peers through its intricate, unfathomable pattern of
ancient, old, old design, one sees blood and guilt and
misunderstanding. And yet it hangs there, this Veil,
between then and now, between Pale and Colored and
Black and White--between You and Me. Surely it is but a
thought-thing, tenuous, intangible; yet just as surely is it
true and terrible and not in our little day may you and I lift
it. We may feverishly unravel its edges and even climb
slow with giant shears to where its ringed and gilded top
nestles close to the throne of Eternity. But as we work
and climb we shall see through streaming eyes and hear
with aching ears, lynching and murder, cheating and
despising, degrading and lying, so flashed and flashed
through this vast hanging darkness that the Doer never
sees the Deed and the Victim knows no the Victor and
Each hate All in wild and bitter ignorance. Listen, O Isles,
to those voices from within the Veil, for they portray the
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most human hurt of the Twentieth Cycle.”
Double Consciousness, or “Twoness”
 “It is a peculiar sensation, this doubleconsciousness, this sense of always looking at
one’s self through the eyes of others, of
measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that
looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever
feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two
souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings;
two warring ideals in one dark body, whose
dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn
asunder.” (Du Bois, 1903/1996:5)
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Double Consciousness, or “Twoness”
African Americans were simultaneously
outsiders and insiders, outsiders within.
Both inside and outside the dominant
white society (separated by the Veil).
Gives them unique and enhanced insight
into society as a whole (ahem, standpoint
theory) and it produces an enormous
tension that manifests itself in pathologies
within the black community.
31
Economics
 “The main weakness of the Negro’s position
is that since emancipation he has never had
an adequate economic foundation.”
 “I believe in the dictum of Karl Marx, that
the economic foundation of a nation is
widely decisive for its politics, its art and its
culture.”
 Race never stands apart from economic
realities (Lemert)
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Economics
Criticized America for its fetishization of
money and overarching materialism.
Emphasized higher education so blacks
could move beyond simple materialism.
33
Karl Marx, Socialism, and Communism
 Conservative by virtue of being elitist
 Earlier believed in reforms, “Only by a union of
intelligence and sympathy across the color-line in this
critical period of the republic shall justice and right
triumph.”
 Reform proved ineffective and Du Bois was drawn to
socialism and later communism.
 Came to the realization that without the “overthrow of
capitalist monopoly the Negro cannot survive in the
United States as a self-respecting cultural unit,
integrating gradually into the nation, but not on terms
which imply self destruction or loss of his possible gifts to
America”
 Class takes on more importance as he ages.
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Karl Marx, Socialism, and Communism
Rather than metatheoretical treatises he
was concerned with an integration of
theory and praxis.
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