V
W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS
William Edward Burghardt Dubois was born February 23, 1868, at GreatBarrington, Mass. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at FiskUniversity in 1888, the same degree at Harvard in 1890, that of Masterof Arts at Harvard in 1891, and, after a season of study at theUniversity of Berlin, received also the degree of Doctor of Philosophyat Harvard in 1895, his thesis being his exhaustive study, "Suppressionof the Slave-Trade." Dr. DuBois taught for a brief period at WilberforceUniversity, and was also for a time an assistant and fellow in Sociologyat the University of Pennsylvania, producing in 1899 his study, "ThePhiladelphia Negro." In 1896 he accepted the professorship of Historyand Economics at Atlanta University, the position which he left in 1910to become Director of Publicity and Research for the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People. In connection withthis work he has edited the _Crisis_ since the beginning of thatpublication. He has made various investigations, frequently for thenational government, and has contributed many sociological studies toleading magazines. He has been the moving spirit of the AtlantaConference, and by the Studies of Negro Problems, which he has edited atAtlanta University, he has become recognized as one of the greatsociologists of the day, and as the man who more than anyone else hasgiven scientific accuracy to studies relating to the Negro.
W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS]
Aside from his more technical studies (these including the masterlylittle book, "The Negro," in Holt's Home University Library Series), Dr.DuBois has written three books which call for consideration in a reviewof Negro literature. Of these one is a biography, one a novel, and theother a collection of essays. In 1909 was published "John Brown," acontribution to the series of American Crisis Biographies. The subjectwas one well adapted to treatment at the hands of Dr. DuBois, and in thelast chapter, "The Legacy of John Brown," he has shown that his herohas a message for twentieth century America, this: "The cost of libertyis less than the price of repression." "The Quest of the Silver Fleece,"the novel, appeared in 1911. This story has three main themes: theeconomic position of the Negro agricultural laborer, the subsidizing ofa certain kind of Negro schools, and Negro life and society in the cityof Washington. The book employs a big theme in its portrayal of thepower of King Cotton in both high and lowly life in the Southland; butits tone is frequently one of satire, and on the whole the work will notadd much to the already established reputation of the author. The thirdbook really appeared before either of the two works just mentioned, andembodies the best work of the author in his most highly idealisticperiod. In 1903 fourteen essays, most of which had already appeared insuch magazines as the _Atlantic_ and the _World's Work_, were broughttogether in a volume entitled, "The Souls of Black Folk." The remarkablestyle of this book has made it the most important work in classicEnglish yet written by a Negro. It is marked by all the arts ofrhetoric, especially by liquid and alliterative effects, strongantithesis, frequent allusion, and poetic suggestiveness. The color-lineis "The Veil," the familiar melodies, the "Sorrow Songs." The qualitiesthat have just been remarked will be observed in the followingparagraphs:
I have seen a land right merry with the sun, where children sing, and rolling hills lie like passioned women wanton with harvest. And there in the King's Highway sat and sits a figure veiled and bowed, by which the traveler's footsteps hasten as they go. On the tainted air broods fear. Three centuries' thought has been the raising and unveiling of that bowed human heart, and now behold a century new for the duty and the deed. The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.
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My journey was done, and behind me lay hill and dale, and Life and Death. How shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And all this life and love and strife and failure--is it the twilight of nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?
Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow car.
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I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they all come graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land?
Where merit is so even and the standard of performance so high, onehesitates to choose that which is best. "The Dawn of Freedom" is a studyof the Freedmen's Bureau; "Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others" is afrank criticism of the late orator and leader; "The Meaning of Progress"is a story of life in Tennessee, told with infinite pathos by one whohas been the country schoolmaster; "The Training of Black Men" is a pleafor liberally educated leadership; while "The Quest of the GoldenFleece," like one or two related essays, is a faithful portrayal of lifein the black belt. The book, as a whole, is a powerful plea for justiceand the liberty of citizenship.
W. E. Burghardt DuBois is the best example that has so far appeared ofthe combination of high scholarship and the peculiarly romantictemperament of the Negro race. Beneath all the play of logic andstatistic beats the passion of a mighty human heart. For a long time hewas criticised as aloof, reserved, unsympathetic; but more and more, asthe years have passed, has his mission become clearer, his love for hispeople stronger. Forced by the pressure of circumstance, gradually hashe been led from the congenial retreat of the scholar into the arena ofsocial struggle; but for two decades he has remained an outstandinginterpreter of the spiritual life of his people. He is to-day theforemost leader of the race in America.
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