is here, during the most formative phase of his life and career, that we find the real roots of his Pan-Africanism – his belief in and commitment to the unification, decolonization, and liberation of continental and diasporan Africa. Indeed, it could be said that Du Bois’s intellectual and political life both begins and ends with explorations of Africa, the African diaspora, slavery, Reconstruction, racism, sexism, colonialism, and capitalism.15
Bearing all of this in mind, throughout this book Du Bois’s evolving thought is examined as an early form of intersectionality – a framework that emphasizes that race, gender, class, and sexuality, among other socio-political categories, are interconnected and frequently combine to create intersecting systems of oppression. Loosely situated within this framework, Du Bois’s discourse can be explored as a kind of embryonic intersectionality – meaning an inchoate, not fully formed variant of intersectionality that, because of its prefigurative nature, is at times conceptually connected, and, at other times, intellectually awkward and discursively disjointed. Nevertheless, when taken together and ample attention is given to his contributions to the critique of racism and sexism and capitalism and colonialism, Du Bois’s corpus registers as both an undeniable and unprecedented contribution to the origins and evolution of what scholars currently call intersectionality.16
Without question, an eclectic but consistently intersectional combination of ideas and interests unfolds across the landscape of Du Bois’s life and work. In fact, each of the subsequent chapters of this book loosely corresponds with a major intersectional category (except for sexuality) and exposes readers to his incipient intersectionality. For example – and as will be discussed in chapter 1, “The Philadelphia Negro: Early Work and the Inauguration of American Sociology” – Du Bois was one of the very first empirical social scientists in the US, and The Philadelphia Negro provides both a history and sociology of the interconnections between race and class (i.e., the racialization of class) in black life and culture. Additionally, the chapter details the pitfalls of Du Bois’s early efforts to use social science in the interest of social reform. Chapters 2 and 3 reveal Du Bois to be one of the most critical, contradictory, and controversial race theorists of the twentieth century. More specifically, the second chapter, “The Souls of Black Folk: Critique of Racism and Contributions to Critical Race Studies,” analyzes Du Bois’s 1903 classic, The Souls of Black Folk, for its contribution to the study and critique of race, anti-black racism, and critical race studies. Chapter 3, “‘The Souls of White Folk’: Critique of White Supremacy and Contributions to Critical White Studies,” essentially inverts the framework from the previous chapter and provides a survey of Du Bois’s work on whiteness, critique of white supremacy, and contributions to what is currently called critical white studies. Chapter 4, “‘The Damnation of Women’: Critique of Patriarchy, Contributions to Black Feminism, and Early Intersectionality,” treats Du Bois’s critique of patriarchy (i.e., male supremacy) and contributions to black feminism and early intersectionality. Finally, chapter 5, “Black Reconstruction: Critique of Capitalism, Contributions to Black Marxism, and Discourse on Democratic Socialism,” explores Du Bois’s Marxist thought and developing democratic socialism via several of his key essays that synthesize elements of black economic nationalism with Marxism. The centerpiece of chapter 5 is Du Bois’s black Marxist magnum opus Black Reconstruction, which was arguably the first application of Marxian concepts to African American enslavement and blacks’ pivotal roles in the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Along with his contributions to the origins and evolution of intersectionality, this book explores Du Bois’s contributions to interdisciplinarity – the practice of bringing the scholarship of two or more academic disciplines together to answer a research question or provide solutions to a problem. Du Bois’s collective coursework at Fisk University, Harvard University, and the University of Berlin was incredibly interdisciplinary, and resulted in a BA in classics from Fisk in 1888; a BA in philosophy from Harvard in 1890; an MA in history from Harvard in 1891; doctoral studies in history, economics, politics, and political economy at the University of Berlin between 1892 and 1894; and, ultimately, a Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1895.17 After earning his doctorate, Du Bois began his teaching career as a professor of classics, teaching Latin, Greek, German, and English, from 1894 to 1896 at Wilberforce University, an African Methodist Episcopal institution in Ohio. He unsuccessfully attempted to add sociology to the curriculum at Wilberforce in 1894, and left the school in frustration for the University of Pennsylvania in 1896, where he was hired as an “Assistant Instructor” to research and write a study on the African Americans of Philadelphia, the previously mentioned The Philadelphia Negro.18 At the University of Pennsylvania, however, Du Bois was still not free from frustration, writing in his autobiography, “I ignored my pitiful stipend” and “it goes without saying that I did no instructing, save once to pilot a pack of idiots through the Negro slums.”19 After his brief stay at the University of Pennsylvania, Du Bois accepted a position at Atlanta University, where he established one of the first sociology departments in the United States and edited 16 innovative interdisciplinary volumes known as the “Atlanta University Studies,” which were published by Atlanta University Press consecutively between 1898 and 1914.20
From reformist to radical to revolutionary
Whether we turn to Du Bois’s early reformist scholarship, his middle-period radicalism, or his late-life embrace of revolutionary politics, a certain dismissiveness pervades Du Bois studies. The general thought is that Du Bois was either a reformist or a radical or a revolutionary socialist. However, it is inconceivable that he could have occupied all three political positions throughout the course of his long life because it defies the adage of “radicalism in youth and conservatism in old age by reversing its order.”21 Du Bois’s upending of the order of conventional political development is one of the main reasons studying his life and work remains important and instructive. Another reason why studying Du Bois’s life and work continues to be crucial is because, in the long run, years of one-dimensional interpretations of his thought have led to his erasure both in the academy and in activist communities. For instance, Du Bois’s The Philadelphia Negro, although often overlooked in the history of sociology, was, upon its publication in 1899, an utterly unprecedented and undeniably innovative work in urban sociology, industrial sociology, historical sociology, political sociology, sociology of race, and sociology of culture. Elijah Anderson asserted in his introduction to a reprint edition of The Philadelphia Negro: “W. E. B. Du Bois is a founding father of American sociology, but, unfortunately, neither this masterpiece nor much of Du Bois’s other work has been given proper recognition.” In fact, Anderson continued, “it is possible to advance through a graduate program in sociology in this country without ever hearing about Du Bois.”22
Anderson’s weighted words here help to highlight why an introduction to Du Bois’s thought that surveys its full range and reach is desperately needed. Beyond his contributions to sociology or history or politics, among other academic disciplines, Du Bois’s life and work continue to offer us much of practical value because we continue to search for solutions to many of the problems he spent a lifetime studying and critiquing. For example, Du Bois’s writings on racism in the twentieth century remain relevant in the twenty-first century because we continue to be plagued by various forms of racism, whether we turn to the police brutality that triggered the Black Lives Matter Movement or the issues surrounding immigration in the US or Europe (e.g., Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic). His contributions to the critique of patriarchy prefigure the current discourse on “male feminism” and offer a powerful model to contemporary men seeking feminist-inspired forms of
