W.E.B. Du Bois : toward agnosticism, 1868-1934 9780742564497, 0742564495

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W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois Toward Agnosticism, 1868-1934

Brian L. Johnson

ROWMAN

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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2008 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 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, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, Brian, 1973W.E.B. Du Bois : toward agnosticism, 1868-1934 / Brian L. Johnson.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-6449-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7425-6449-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-6575-3 (electronic) ISBN-10: 0-7425-6575-0 (electronic) 1. Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963—Religion. 2. Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963—Political and social views. 3. Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963—Language. 4. Agnosticism—United States—Case studies. 5. Skepticism—United States—Case studies. 6. Rhetoric—Religious aspects—Christianity—Case studies. 7. African Americans—Religion—Case studies. 1. ‘Title. II. Tide: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. E185.97.D73)645 2008 303.48'4092—dc22

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To Shemeka Barnes Johnson—wife, confidante, and best friend

Now in both these things there are certain facts that are naturally indisputable. The first is that science, organized human knowledge, does not pretend to give a complete answer to the riddle of the universe |. . .| Now as expositor and preserver of assumed truth and faith in the good comes the organized church. The church tries to systematize these assumptions and explain and act on them; to write down the creed with exactness and even to go so far as to enforce its belief upon recalcitrants. This of course becomes immediately a difficult and dangerous task. And most of the criticism aimed against religion is primarily a criticism of those organized churches which try to express religion. The church falls into all sorts of errors. It states as absolute truth one day that which it denies as truth the next day. Then too when the organized church exercises power its role is always dangerous. Its arguments cannot be refuted by an appeal to truth because it is not founded on truth but on faith. And by the very basis of its logic its faith is not proveable. What now must be the attitude of aman who does not believe all a church teaches and who proposes to be free and untrammeled in mind, charitable toward his fellows and who wants on the whole to do what is right; that is, to injure no other man by his actions and to guide his own character along safe and beautiful paths. Manifestly, such a man joins an organized church with difficulty because the statement of truth made by the church must always lag behind the truth as it is actually known. And for that reason there is always the endeavor on the part of the young and the thoughtful to lay less emphasis on creed and belief and more on ethics and action. But also and for equally evident reasons, the church continually attacks this attitude. Among Negroes specially today it is most natural for preachers to sneer at the man who is merely good and emphasize the transcendental value of the person who is too dumb to question any fairytale forced upon his belief. [. . .| With such fundamental facts clearly in mind, a young Negro ought not to be puzzled by his religious surroundings. He should see in the church an expression of that desire for full and ultimate truth; that desire for goodness and beauty which is ingrained in every human being; and on the other hand and just as clearly he should frankly denounce all attempt on the part of any organized body of human beings when they declare that they know it and that God has personally told them about it. That is a plain lie and they know it and everybody else ought to know it. We must have religion in the sense of striving for the infinite, the ultimate and the best.

—William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “The Church and Religion,” The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races (October 1933)

I may say frankly that I am unable to follow the reasoning of people who use the word “spirit” and “spiritual” in a technical religious sense. It is true that after any great world calamity, when people have suffered widely there is a tendency to relapse into superstition, obscurantism, and the formal religion of creeds in a vague attempt to reassure humanity, because reason and logic seemed to have failed. This instead of a spiritual “awakening” is to my mind an evidence of ignorance and discouragement. On the other hand among some people there comes in time of stress and depression an increase of determination to plan and work for better conditions. This is not usually called a “spiritual awakening” but it is apt to be condemned by the ignorant as “radicalism” and an “attack” upon the established order. It is, however, a manifestation of the spirit in the highest sense and something of this I seem to see beginning today.

—W.E.B. Du Bois, “Letter to George Vaughn,” February 23, 1934 If by being “a believer in God,” you mean a belief in a person or vast power who consciously rules the universe for the good of mankind, I answer No; I cannot disprove this assumption, but I certainly see no proof to sustain such a belief, neither in History nor in personal experience. If on the other hand you mean by “God” a vague Force which in some uncomprehensible way, dominates all life and change, then I answer, Yes; I recognize such Force and if you wish to call it God, I do not object. —W.E.B. Du Bois, “Letter to E. Pina Moren," November 15, 1948, responding to the following query posed by E. Pina Moren, a priest of the Primera Iglesia Bautista in Cuba, on October 3, 1948: “I would like to know if you are a believer in God, also what is your opinion about the Lord Jesus.”

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Contents

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction: Toward Agnosticism 1

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

2

T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe (Freeman) and Great Barrington’s “Very Religious” and “Strange” Settlers

23

From a Christian Pragmatism to Social Science: Fisk, Harvard, and Berlin

35

‘

“

Silent Times: The Preacher, the Scholar, and the American

Negro Academy

53

“As the Crow Flies”

69

The Agnostic Pulpit: The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races

103

Epilogue: “The Great Ghandi,” “The Prophet of Communism,” and Agnostic Legacy

129

Index

139

About the Author

141

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Acknowledgments

There are several institutions and persons I would like to thank for their assistance while conducting the research and writing for this project. The research for this project was funded at various points by The University of South Carolina at Columbia’s African American Professors Program, (UNCF) Social Science Research Council/Andrew W. Mellon predoctoral grants, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation travel/research grant, and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (Career Enhancement Fellowship). A 2004-2005 nonresident fellowship within The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University,

provided invaluable access to the facilities and libraries while I lived in Massachusetts. The staff within the manuscript division of the Library of Congress proved most helpful in the early stages of my research. And Onie Williams and staff at the Duke University Perkins Library were always helpful and kind with their assistance. Gordon College’s Center for Christian Studies, Claflin University’s Jonathan Jasper Wright Institute for the Study of History, Culture and Policy, Johnson

C. Smith

University’s Crutchfield

Center

for Inte-

grated Studies, and the J. McDonald Williams Institute (Dallas, Texas) provided much needed time (and intellectual space and refuge) for my writing.

xi

xii

Acknowledgments

Thank you to David Levering Lewis (for providing lunch, inspiration, and conceptual boldness in New York). Thank you to Kwame Dawes, Matthew Bruccoli, and Herman Beavers for mentorship (within and beyond) the academy. I would also like to issue a heartfelt thanks to Benjamin Mays, Cornel West, and George Marsden, for the academic writings of these men inspired me to move from Durham to Athens to Jerusalem (and then to and fro). Finally, |would like to acknowledge my sons, Brian Asa and Nathan Morgan Qodesh, whose destinies (and love for Daddy) are boundless.

Introduction Toward Agnosticism

When John Winthrop, the governor of the first colony established at Massachusetts Bay, delivered his stirring sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in 1630 aboard the ship Arbella to Puritans newly arriving on the shores of New England, he would have never imagined that over three centuries later a genuine child of New England Protestant Congregationalism—William Edward Burghardt Du Bois—would relinquish the “light” of Winthrop’s so-called “City Upon A Hill,” for the metaphorical “darkness” of Ghana, Africa and there remain until his death.' And while Du Bois scholars of all ilks usually interpret the symbolism

of such a move

as his final repudiation of America, the

emblematic shift might also be seen in light of his agnostic philosophy, for Du Bois’s closing act, in swapping an American capitalist and democratic vision woven within the historic fabric of Protestant religious orthodoxy for a Communist economic and proletarian vision, which prominently maintained, among other important elements, that it was without God, dogma, and religion, challenges scholars interested in Du Bois to offer far more rigorous interrogations of the presence of agnosticism in his life, which has thus far been wholly avoided. To date, David Levering Lewis's Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part biography on Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1919): Biography ofa Race and WE.B. Du Bois (1919-1963) The Fight for Equality and the American Century is (and will likely remain) the definitive full-length biography

2

Introduction

on W.E.B. Du Bois. Though the present biography does not aspire to cover the length, breadth, range, and scope of Du Bois’s life as Lewis's does, it is designed to offer a chronological deliberation of a highly notorious—yet virtually undiscussed—biographical journey that is quite essential for a more rounded configuration of Du Bois’s life and work: his progression away from the New England Congregationalism of his youth toward his eventual agnosticism. This biography, W.E.B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism (1868-1934), is therefore best seen in the Du Bois biographical tradition of Manning Marable’s W.E.B. Du Bots: Black Radical Democrat (1986), which is preoccupied with those contours of Du Bois’s life that flesh out Du Bois’s democratic impulses. Yet dissimilarly, W.E.B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism (1868-1934) will only pay particular attention to germane areas of Du Bois’s developing agnosticism to which very little extensive attention has been paid in historical, sociological, and literary scholarship on Du Bois. (It will reserve an examination of Du Bois’s life when his agnosticism was in full swing for further exploration in a follow-up biography.) For it would be quite an ambitious (and presumptuous) undertaking to accomplish not only the first plain consideration of Du Bois agnosticism in a biographical treatment—when more accomplished Du Bois scholars have not done so to date—but also to explain his coming to the outlook and (what will be equally interesting) how it informed his life and work from 1934 to the year of his passing in 1963. Therefore, this biography dates the period of Du Bois’s evolution toward agnosticism from 1868 (the date of his birth) to 1934 (the date of his resignation as editor of Crisis magazine). While it is nearly impracticable to definitively date the inception of Du Bois’s agnosticism (or anyone else’s philosophical perspective), the period dating from 1868 to 1934 marks the clearest telltale signs of his mounting agnosticism. These signs can be witnessed in Du Bois’s earliest influences within the Congregational Church in Great Barrington, his encounter with a newly planted A.M.E. Zion church in Great Barrington, his first writings appearing in T. Thomas Fortune's periodical (his most frequently chosen genre), his immature zeal to actualize a pragmatic Christianity, his arriving at social science in Berlin, his muted tenure within the American Negro Academy and his affiliation with the Reverend Alexander Crummell, his many intermittent criticisms of African American religious organizations and its leaders, and, finally, his tenure as editor of Crisis magazine, when his agnosticism (though necessarily tacit) was slowly but surely becoming apparent to his readers.

Toward Agnosticism

3

To be clear, in all the annals of American and African American history, one will probably not find another agnostic as preoccupied with and as familiar with so much biblical, religious, and spiritual rhetoric as W.E.B. Du Bois. Yet, to argue—as does Edward Blum’s W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet (2007) (which aside from Phil Zuckermann’s edited collection, Du Bois on Religion, is the only other full-length work to consider Du Bois’s “religious” concerns)—that Du Bois’s much repeated use of Protestant religious rhetoric was a manifestation of some deep and cryptic expression of belief in God without any accompanying practice of any known religious orthodoxy is roundly unfair to Du Bois’s legacy and something that Du Bois’s own scientific orientation would positively resist. For in all of Du Bois’s published (written and verbal) eloquence where he sought to sway men to participate in varying movements, he never once persuaded them to follow an unnamed religious course, unless of course one has recently uncovered something along the lines of the church and religion of Du Bois and, to borrow a phrase often used by Du Bois, this would be “poppycock.”? This biography understands Du Bois as having eventually become decidedly agnostic. And such a premise stands firmly in the tradition of Du Bois biographers—chiefly David Levering Lewis—whose biographical and historical portraits maintain the very distinctions that Du Bois held between any pronounced religious dogma (including any describing his beliefs) and his historic deeds and events that were for the most part unaffiliated with any form of religious orthodoxy. Manning Marable, whose essay “The Black Faith of Du Bois” concedes “{Du Bois’s] God was the God of Black liberation” and that there is still more to come to terms with concerning his close proximity to “black religious life,” still acknowledges that “Du Bois described himself as an ‘agnostic’ and questioned the ‘immortality’ of man.”3 And the sort of agnosticism that Du Bois—a German-trained sociologist by vocation—would arrive at was squarely along the lines of fellow scientist Thomas Huxley. Huxley (who is credited with coining the term “agnostic” in 1869) defined agnosticism in a now infamous personal letter to his friend Charles Kingsley as such: “It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts.“4 Yet, it would be a mistake to suggest that Du Bois’s gradual—but

steady—movement toward agnosticism is evidence of some deep and

4

Introduction

abiding hatred for Providence of any sort. Rather, much like his agnostic predecessor Huxley, Du Bois was a product of scientific modernity, and, on the strength of the many modern developments that both men personally and scientifically experienced through facts and reason, religious dogma would have had to similarly “produce evidence” of “some vague force” called God to earn their allegiance. All the same, Du Bois’s positioning as a prominent African American in the late nineteenth and twentieth century—unlike Huxley—was

within the backdrop of a robust tradition of African American churches and religious organizations situated largely within the South, and this unavoidably placed him at odds with a community whose reliance upon religious and spiritual orthodoxy was deeply entrenched. And the bitter irony of this fact was that this was the very community he long envisioned himself leading from the time he was a teenager in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. This is probably the reason why Du Bois scholars would rather treat Du Bois alongside of religion or any other subject except agnosticism. To be sure, Du Bois’s agnosticism was nearly always unstated, tacit, and indirect (at least until he joined the Community Party, USA and consigned to its core principles including no dogma), for he well understood that his career-long (and almost fanatical) antagonism toward African American religious organizations and its leadership was tantamount to heresy to the very domestic (and deeply religious) African American communities to which he offered his scholarship, his reform program, his devotion and—ultimately—his life. In sum, this biography chronicles those events, personages, and writings that reflect Du Bois’s progression (not complete manifestation) toward a definitive yet nonproselytizing agnosticism. Thus, the following chapters comprise the biography. Chapter 1, “The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington,” chronicles Du Bois’s time within the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington. What Protestant zeal and rhetoric that Du Bois extracted from religious orthodoxy was mainly owing to his idyllic view of the New England Congregationalism of his youth and the constellation of Great Barrington personages and events that he was exposed to: his distant namesakes’ resistance to religious authority (the Burghardts), his mother Mary Burghardt’s insistence upon education (not religion) as the salvation of African Americans, and the apparent intolerance of the Congregationalist pastor (Evarts Scudder) of the scientific views with which Judge Justin Dewey sought to infuse the church. And the

Toward Agnosticism

5

impressionable—and intuitively perceptive—teenaged Du Bois discovered quite early in life that fashioning morality and ethics need not come about within doors of the church alone. Chapter 2, “T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe (Freeman) and Great Barrington’s ‘Very Religious’ and ‘Strange’ Settlers,” chronicles his first introduction to public writing within the pages ofT.Thomas Fortune's newspaper. It also chronicles his first introduction to southern African Americans. Fortune would embody, for the first time in Du Bois’s life, an intelligent African American offering both vision and direction through the genre of periodical writing, which would eventually become Du Bois’s lifelong pattern as well. More so, when a group of southern A.M.E Zion African Americans took up residence within Great Barrington, they proved to be the prototype audience for a young lad who was beginning to understand that his background and education (not religious affiliation) uniquely qualified him to lead them. Chapter 3, “From a Christian Pragmatism to Social Science: Fisk, Harvard, and Berlin,” chronicles Du Bois’s educational experiences at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin. When Du Bois attended college at Fisk University, a historically black institution in Tennessee, he would have his first serious misgivings about the efficacy of religion within the African American community, for Fisk would attempt to do what no institution (including a religious one like Fisk) would ever be able to do: constrain Du Bois’s moral philosophy. While Du Bois would later hail those philosophical and ethical values of the institution and its faculty members that were properly inculcated into their students, such theoretical agreement ceased when it came to his personal acceptance of religion. Yet while Du Bois’s religious skepticism would most glaringly crystallize under the mentorship of the pragmatic philosopher William James during his time at Harvard, he appeared to carry along with him—from his days within the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington—an abiding (albeit naive) desire to formulate and cultivate for African Americans the very Protestant virtues he saw modeled in Great Barrington. Yet, it would

be Germany not Harvard where such a scholarly plan for reform would be had, namely through the field of social science. Chapter 4, “Silent Times: The Preacher, the Scholar, and the American Negro Academy,” chronicles the one organization and person in Du Bois’s life that he largely omitted when retracing the story of his life—the American Negro Academy and Alexander Crummell. Du Bois secured his first academic appointment at Wilberforce University,

6

Introduction

a religious institution under the auspices of the A.M.E church. While there, Du Bois would try to maintain a careful, uneasy balance between the religious expectations that the university would require of him and the research, educational, and intellectual expectations that he would require of the university. In the waning days of his very brief tenure at Wilberforce, Du Bois would begin developing a vision ofeducational and moral leadership directed toward African Americans that would radically challenge organized religion within the African American community. And it was at Wilberforce University where Du Bois first met Alexander Crummell, a Yale-educated African American preacher and scholar. Crummell’s willingness to take his fellow African American clergymen to task for their derisory education, illiteracy, immorality, and a host of other areas proved attractive to Du Bois’s bourgeoning agnosticism. And though Crummell, Du Bois, and other African American Academy members attempted to craft quasi-religious reform rhetoric to implement the reform aims that Du Bois’s “The Conservation of Races” promoted, it was clear that the question of how to infuse scholarly knowledge into quasi-religious reform rhetoric was never entirely resolved, as this oil-and-water union between Du Bois’s credentials and

agnosticism, and the religious dogma associated with Crummell’s rigid adherence to Episcopalian doctrine, would result in Du Bois’s relative silence about this period in his life. What’s more, the semblance of the academy's Occasional Papers, a utilitarian periodical designed to regularly transmit and disseminate the academy’s reform ideals, would foreshadow Du Bois’s use of the periodical throughout his career for reforming moral, ethical, and social behavior through science. Chapter 5, “‘As the Crow Flies/” chronicles Du Bois’s utilization of the periodical for articulating the reform needs of African Americans. With inspired energy and strategy, partly emerging from the plans for the utilitarian periodical publication within the American Negro Academy, Du Bois became an African American leader of national import while teaching at Atlanta University and subsequently becoming a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. As a symbolic African American crow, Du Bois was able to utilize the knowledge gained through his sociological research on African Americans to communicate a newfangled brand of social reform with himself, an African American possessing a Harvard Ph.D., as its sole authority. Du Bois’s novelty was intriguing to progressive, liberal, educated, and wealthy white editors

Toward Agnosticism

TZ

and leaders within organizations like the NAACP, and Du Bois would

take advantage of this form of tokenism to implement a vision for African American reform driven by a firm historical and sociological grasp of African American social problems that few whites knew or cared to know as well. And since Du Bois’s educational pedigree would be largely unrivalled except by the standing that African American religious leaders possessed, this period provided Du Bois with the encouragement that he might possibly offer an alternative to the dogma of such organizations when both the opportunity and platform presented itself, Chapter 6, “The Agnostic Pulpit: The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races," chronicles how Crisis became the long-awaited platform for Du Bois to communicate a plan for reforming African Americans that would distinctly contain no religious dogma. It became categorically important for Crisis to address more pressing concerns than simply racial discrimination to gain serious consideration from African American readers who were already calcified from such unceasing assaults. Relying upon a remarkable breadth of academic training, Du Bois and carefully selected, like-minded contributors, who were either agnostic or sufficiently detached from organized African American religion, addressed social problems arising from within the African American community from a decidedly scientific or irreligious viewpoint; thus, Crisis—to

some

extent—became

the mouthpiece

for a

newfangled reform rhetoric that would set forth leadership in reform matters that ran counter to the traditional reform discourses found in Negro churches. A major controversy involving the agnostic Clarence Darrow found Du Bois on the opposite side of many faithful African American churchgoers and Du Bois found himself and his agnosticism increasingly alienated from the masses of African Americans. The epilogue, “The Great Ghandi/ “The Prophet of Communism,

and Agnostic Legacy,” offers a final assessment of Du Bois’s final pledge toward communism in light of his views of Martin Luther King. In a few of his last editorials, Du Bois openly questioned the efficacy of King and the American civil rights movement. Contained within the movement was a religious philosophy that Du Bois believed inconsistent with the present conditions of African Americans,

and Du Bois had long since decided that no such protest movement with such decided Christian underpinnings could openly receive his support. And, in the very last period of Du Bois’s long life, communism became what Du Bois felt he could not (or would not) do within

8

Introduction

any other social organization: openly embrace the rejection of religious dogma as a programmatic ideal.

NOTES 1. John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1838). 2. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” Amsterdam News, October 23, 1943, 17. 3. Manning Marable, Black Leadership (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 59. 4. Thomas Huxley, “To Charles Kingsley,” 23 Sept. 1860, in Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, ed. and comp. Leonard Huxley, 233 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1901).

i The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

Nearly a full century before William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’s birth (1868-1963), his Dutch ancestral namesakes were involved in a religious controversy at the same First Congregational Church of Great Barrington that he would attend as a youth. And, in many ways, this event foreshadows Du Bois’s future agnosticism and aversion to all religious authority, orthodoxy, and dogma. Under the direction of the Reverend Samuel Hopkins, a protégé of the eminent New England evangelist Jonathan Edwards, the original First Congregational Church of Great Barrington was organized in December 1743. Hopkins also possesses the distinct honor of becoming Jonathan Edwards’s first biographer.! Traditionally, the Dutch were communicants to the Lutheran church in contrast to most of Great Barrington’s English, who were adherents of orthodox New England Congregationalism. However, in the absence of a Lutheran church located in the town of Great Barrington, a handful of Dutch citizens affiliated themselves with the First Congregational Church among whom were the Dutch Burghardts. In fact, five Burghardts—Hendrick, John, Peter, Jacob, and

Garrett—were among an original jury comprised of forty-nine freeholders appointed to govern judicial matters as part of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions when the town of Great Barrington was incorporated in 1761.? A direct ancestral linkage between these Burghardts and Du Bois’s family is not certain. However, Great Barrington’s African American

10

Chapter 1

Burghardts—one of the oldest families in the town and from which Du Bois’s mother descended—point to a slave-owning connection between the Dutch Burghardts and an African slave named Tom, who began their line in Great Barrington. Du Bois’s own account of this ancestral tie is as follows: [The black Burghardts] “were a group of African Negroes descended from Tom, who was born in West Africa about 1730. [Tom] was stolen by Dutch slave traders and brought to the valley of the Hudson as a small child.”? It is not clear whether Tom’s slave-owning Burghardt family are the same clan members who would be punished for failing to obey Congregationalist dictates. Though Great Barrington town historian, merchant, and industrialist Charles Taylor believed a Tom Burghardt secured both his freedom and a farm after four days’ military service with Captain John Spoor's company in 1780 during the Revolutionary War, neither Taylor’s nor Du Bois’s account has much evidence to substantiate the claims.* Yet and still, in spite of this problematic ancestral connection, Du Bois’s principled temperament would have nonetheless temporarily suspended judgment upon the Dutch Burghardts’ slaveholding transgressions when contemplating the significance of this notable religious episode. For this historic episode involving a possible misuse of religious authority against the Burghardt family name—though occurring well over a full century before his birth—might have constantly reverberated within Du Bois’s recollections when ultimately deciding whether to begin what would become his long trek towards agnosticism. Strict colonial laws in eighteenth century Great Barrington required “attendance upon public worship as often as once in three months [and] was obligatory upon the inhabitants and negligence of duty in this respect was a penal offence.” Du Bois’s Dutch namesakes—John, Peter, and Garret—failed to comply with this ordinance. Strained re-

lations had probably existed between the Dutch Burghardts and the English pastor of First Congregational Church, for Reverend Hopkins remarked when describing the times in which the event occurred that “there was a deplorable want of religious sentiment among” the Dutch citizenry of Great Barrington. Like his mentor Jonathan Edwards, Hopkins might have been criticized for moral rigidity but—unlike Edwards—certainly not bigotry. In fact, he held the prickly honor of perhaps being the first New England Congregationalist leader to speak openly against slavery. Nevertheless, a complaint was entered against the Dutch Burghardts along with others, and they were given a choice of either paying a fine or being confined in public stocks.

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

iE)

The offenders were even given a “few days delay” to consider their options. The Burghardts ultimately chose the stocks, and, as there were no public stocks found in Great Barrington’s parish, they were taken to Sheffield to serve their sentences. In Sheffield, the Burghardts might have been subject to insults from the many Congregationalist onlookers who would be present. However, their elder brother, Hendrick Burghardt, ensured that such public ridicule would not be carried out at the expense of his family’s name and reputation. For Hendrick “with the intent to protect the sufferers from abuse [. . .] went with them to Sheffield, armed with gun, powder-horn and bulletpouch, and taking his stand beside the prisoners as they were placed in the stocks, made bold declarations that he would inflict punishment upon any who should offer them insult.”5 At first glance, Charles Taylor’s 1882 account of Great Barrington’s early history and that of the Dutch Burghardts appear to have little to do with Du Bois’s early tenure within the First Congregational Church and the earliest formation of his moral, ethical, and intellec-

tual life. (Du Bois never references this episode in any of his writings.) Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that Du Bois, who was a fifteen-year old when ‘Taylor's history was published, envisioned himself within an anti-Congregationalist lineage (if in name only) during a period of intense scrutiny about the First Congregational Church’s efficacy, particularly in regard to social efforts. Such a conclusion is not a far-fetched one, in light of Du Bois’s mother’s insistence upon one’s own efforts outside of Congregationalist dictates for future success, his abiding admiration for Judge Justin Dewey's adversarial stances at First Congregational Church on behalfof social liberalism, and the fact that Du Bois might have had highly influential conversations about the supreme importance of academic pursuits with Charles Taylor himself, who was also known to have been “one of Willie’s earliest mentors” and his earliest advocate.® All the same, the Dutch Burghardts and an African American inheritor of the family name, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, possessed at least this much in common. They were profoundly disaffected with the reach of Congregationalist authority into the civil freedoms of men when its apparent Providential mandate for doing so was—at best— waning in influence during what was quickly becoming a thoroughly enlightened late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England and—at worst—void of legitimate authority to have ever warranted such a mandate in any century.

12

Chapter 1

Ironically, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, future agnostic, was born on Church Street. His mother and father rented this abode from Thomas Jefferson “Old Jeff” McKinley (an escaped slave). Moreover, Du Bois “grew up [within the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington] and its Sunday School,” which was likewise incongruous given his looming beliefs.” His mother, Mrs. Mary Burghardt Du Bois, is listed in the records of the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington as having become a member in 1878.8 Until then, Mary Du Bois and her son attended services at St. James Episcopal Church. While the facts surrounding the life of Du Bois’s father, Alfred Du Bois, are rather enigmatic, he positively left the family well before Du Bois’s tenth birthday. Under such familial circumstances, it is not difficult to understand why, in a town where there were very few African Americans, Du Bois’s “chief communication with the people of the town was through the church.”? In the 1885 Massachusetts state census, Great Barrington had a population of 4,471 and, of these citizens, 107 were classed as “native blacks.” Reverend Evarts Scudder was the minister at First Congregational Church of Great Barrington during Mary Du Bois’s membership. Scudder’s pastoral tenure, lasting nineteen years, was second only to that of the founding pastor, Reverend Samuel Hopkins. Scudder was a learned man—having studied two years at both Harvard and Williams and finally receiving a theological degree at Andover—and he was fundamentally Calvinist. He ministered the church's Articles of Faith, reflecting the strict Calvinism of his distant predecessor Reverend Hopkins. The divine authority of the Bible, the sinful nature of man, the absolute dependence of man upon the atonement of Christ, and sanctification by Christ were recurring themes in Scudder’s sermons. These were also the firm tenets of New England Congregationalist theology.'® Joseph Clark’s Historical Sketch of Congregational Churches in Massachusetts (1858) conveys the confidence possessed by Scudder and similarly situated Congregationalist ministers to impact not only New England and America, but the world: “The present generation of New England Congregationalists owe a debt to the world which they have not discharged. There is a vast amount of moral and religious capital lying in our hands unemployed and wasting by neglect which would yield a large percentage in aid if all of our moral and religious enterprises [were] properly husbanded and put to use.”!! Yet and still, unlike his predecessor Reverend Hopkins (though Hopkins’s remarks hardly moved much beyond the injustice of slav-

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

13

ery), Minister Scudder’s preaching and doctrinal exposition contained little if any references to the plight of African Americans and provided even fewer practical applications devoted to moral, ethical, and social behaviors that would help them to negotiate the unique societal obstacles they faced. Although it appears that both mother and son were among his devoted and pious parishioners until Mary’s death and Du Bois’s departure to Fisk University in 1884 and 1885 respectively, Minister Scudder inevitably failed to make any lasting impression upon the theological development of the young Du Bois. David Levering Lewis suggests, “Neither the god of Moses nor the redeeming Christ appears to have spoken deeply to Mary Silvina’s brainy, selfabsorbed son.”!? And while Du Bois did not seem to allow the more ethereal elements of Calvinist morality to become permanently lodged within his center, Scudder’s doctrine left an indelible mark upon Du Bois’s stern New England—even Puritanical—moral, ethical, and intellectual ethos, which would echo and reverberate throughout his long progression toward agnosticism. Manning Marable is one of the few commentators to mark this persistent theme in Du Bois’s life and writings: “[C]ulture and ethics rather than politics dominated Du Bois’s concerns.”!3 Although his future agnosticism would eventually make him decidedly critical of all forms of orthodox Christianity and its ministers, Du Bois’s speeches, commencement addresses, periodical writings, book reviews, and scholarship always retained a rather perceptible moral and ethical strain that clearly resonated with the sermons he heard during his time within the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington. In later years, Du Bois himself remarked about his life, “my morals were sound even puritanical.”'4 In 1897 while still a major contributor to Crummell’s The American Negro Academy, Du Bois’s infamous terming of a black “Talented Tenth” insisted that such leadership should “sound a note of warning that would echo in every black cabin in the land: unless we conquer our present vices they will

conquer us.”!5 Still also, Du Bois was widely regarded as the father of the Harlem Renaissance for having giving considerable space to its authors and poets within the pages of The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races (1910-1934), and his book reviews and essays often castigated this young cadre of African American intellectuals for their moral looseness. So much so that Claude McKay—an acclaimed Harlem Renaissance poet—took issue with Du Bois for his didactic and moralist

14

Chapter 1

criticisms. Responding in a June 18, 1928, letter to Du Bois for reproving McKay’s novel Home to Harlem for its moral depravity, McKay

wrote: “The editor steps outside the limits of criticism to become personal. I should think that a publication so holy-clean and righteouspure as the Crisis should hesitate about promoting anything from the pen of a writer who wallows so much in ‘dirt’ ‘filth’ ‘drunkenness’ ‘fighting’ and ‘lascivious sexual promiscuity’ [. . .]| deep-sunk in depravity though he may be the author of Home to Harlem prefers to remain unrepentant and unregenerate and he ‘distinctly’ is not grateful for any free baptism of grace in the cleansing pages of the Crisis.“1° Notwithstanding his published book reviews and essays, Du Bois’s long-time pulpit, The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, was not without other acrimonious moral and ethical criticisms targeted toward the wider African American community. Though Du Bois’s Crisis writings and those he solicited for the magazine were far more known for their protest on behalf of African Americans, there was a considerable amount of writings directed toward African American moral and ethical shortcomings.'? Du Bois’s periodical writing in his latter years even found space to commend Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin for its moral and ethical worth despite its harsh treatment from other educated African Americans: “Of all the influences which worked to emancipate the American Negro from slavery, Mrs. Stowe’s novel was the most potent in its appeal to the heart of the world. The character of Uncle Tom is humble and understandable and infinitely pitiable. It is certainly not the only reaction to evil nor the one called for in 1945. But in 1845, the humble surrender to utter and overwhelming disaster and hers was something that a cruel world could understand even in its bestial fury. Sacrifice and suffering is not the only answer to the woe of mankind, but it is one answer that has been made successful by Socrates and Jesus Christ.”18 Such remonstrations were finally found in the fading twilight of his life. Once again, though decidedly agnostic in tone, Du Bois used stern religious rhetoric in his very last periodical writing published in The Pittsburgh Courier on August 22, 1963—published five days before his passing in Ghana: “We have been ruined by ‘eloquent’ sermons and speeches; smart, funny, emotional appeals without facts and without careful preparation and with no opportunity to ask questions or require explanations. We ‘enjoy’ sermons and speeches. This is all sheer damnation.”'? Although Du Bois’s adult philosophy and strong condemnations of moral and ethical waywardness would remain im-

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

15

bued with the Congregationalist rhetoric of his youth, his devotion to its ends would cease there; however, in the main, Protestant influences

within and beyond the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington deeply impressed Du Bois with the notion that the ethical “deeds” of men—particularly in all moral, ethical, intellectual, and social efforts—were far more valuable than mere profession of dogmatic faith. And Du Bois would hold fast to this influence for the remainder ofhis life, remarking in his autobiography Dusk of Dawn, “I am especially glad that the partial Puritanism of my upbringing has never made me afraid of life |. . .] Perhaps above all I am proud of a straightforward clearness of reason in part a gift of the gods, but also to no little degree due to scientific training and inner discipline. . . . | have realized that Love is God and Work is His prophet; that His ministers are Age and Death.”° Curiously enough, it was Mary Burghardt Du Bois, an unlettered late-nineteenth-century African American woman, who was perhaps most responsible for her son’s earliest conception of an unrelenting self-reliance resulting in deeds that would extend into all moral, ethical, intellectual, and social matters. On the importance of individual

effort and accomplishment, Du Bois’s mother was unmistakably clear: “The secret of life and the loosing of the color bar, then, lay in excellence, in accomplishment. If others of my family or my colored kin had stayed in school instead of quitting early for small jobs they could have risen to equal whites. On this my mother quietly insisted. There was no real discrimination on account of color—it was all a matter of ability and hard work.”?! Contrary to Scudder’s Calvinist admonitions to completely trust in, believe in, and rely upon the grace of God found in the person ofJesus Christ for man’s salvation (both now and

in the time to come), Mary Du Bois flooded her son with a matter-offact philosophy that one’s salvation and success was entirely dependent upon the individual. At the very least, this was the impression left with Du Bois who recalled, “I grew up in the midst of definite ideas as to wealth and poverty, work and charity. The poor on the whole were themselves to be blamed. They were unfortunate and if so their fortunes could easily be mended with care. But chiefly, they were ‘shiftless’ and ‘shiftlessness’ was unforgivable."?? In retrospect, a much older and wiser Du Bois (as well as his mother) might have considered that systemic American prejudice against African Americans was such that no amount of individual effort and personal ethics could overcome it. For if the nation’s first

16

Chapter 1

African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895 experienced the racist tragedy of not being invited to take a permanent post at a white university, how much less of achance would an unlettered African American (not thirty years removed from slavery) have in overcoming racial discrimination? In spite of this, Mary Burghardt’s notion of individual effort was not a foreign one, for the preceding generation of eighteenth-century white New Englanders (as well as their nineteenth-century descendants) similarly began disregarding much of abstract Protestantism while holding fast to its still-regarded “Protestant work ethic.” In fact, the most famous to do so—Benjamin Franklin—bears a conspicuous resemblance to the formation of this facet of Du Bois’s mounting agnosticism (albeit a full century later). Though not widely known, in 1956, seven years before Du Bois’s death in Ghana, Africa, the Vienna World Peace Council asked him to write a biographical account of Benjamin Franklin’s life. The biography was to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Franklin’s birth. Among other things, the biography focused on Franklin’s scientific efforts, his hatred of cant and orthodox religion, and his fanatic devotion to improving the well-being of his fellow Americans.?? While Du Bois's The Story of Benjamin Franklin consisted of only thirty-nine pages, this was indeed a noteworthy, unprecedented moment in American print history: the most looming figure in African American letters was requested to document the life of one of the most formative figures in the whole of American letters. In considering Franklin’s life and letters alongside Du Bois’s, one notices several striking parallels—parallels that did not escape Du Bois’s shrewd perception. Like Franklin, Du Bois was reared in the New England Congregationalist tradition and later disavowed it. As teenagers, both men undertook their first printed efforts, in the form of moralizing columns— Franklin for his brother’s New England Courant newspaper under the

guise of Mrs. Silence Dogood, and Du Bois for T. Thomas Fortune's New York Globe. Also, both men shared a devotion to scientific and rational pursuits of truth throughout their long careers in public life. However, the most provocative link between these famous personages found throughout their various labors in print media was their consistent choice of theme: moral and ethical improvement. Many of Franklin’s moral and ethical commentaries were directed toward his eighteenth-century American compatriots, and Du Bois’s would be directed toward his fellow compatriots as well—late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century blacks. Although it is virtually impossible

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

17

to determine decisively whether or not Benjamin Franklin figured prominently in Du Bois’s later agnosticism—none of Du Bois’s personal or public writings mention Franklin except for a reference to Poor Richard in a writing appearing in Crisis entitled “Thrift,”24—Du Bois’s near replication of Franklin’s life is quite telling. Both men found Protestant notions of passive faith in God completely wanting when individuals possessed gifts and abilities that might accomplish the same (or far more). And to the vexation of the many generations of readers who have sought wisdom in these stalwarts’ writings for their own moral and ethical (even intellectual) betterment, neither Franklin nor Du Bois confessed that their intrinsic gifts and abilities were far superior to those of most men and women. In spite of this curious link to Franklin’s career, “Poor Richard” would hardly be the most influential kindred—and scholarly—spirit upon Du _ Bois’s moral and ethical development during his time within the First Congregational Church at Great Barrington. Instead, Judge Justin Dewey (who would later become infamous for his adjudication at Lizzie Borden’s murder trial) may have wielded the greatest influence upon Du Bois’s earliest ideas about deserting an abstract faith for a more pragmatic moral and ethical engagement that would benefit society and its members, particularly African Americans. During Du Bois’s time within the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, “a new spirit was entering the Christian Church under

the impetus of scientific studies and rising social problems [. . .] they were coming to see that the religious life involved certain social applications in the daily conduct of society as well as the intellectual acceptance of the theological dogmas. Thus in the 1870s and 1880s a liberalism was arising to challenge the old orthodoxy.” Judge Justin Dewey was a “prominent figure in all community affairs” and was known for his “scholarship and learning.” In addition to serving on all of the important committees in the First Congregational Church for a number of years, he taught a “large Bible Class on Sunday mornings, in preparation for which he kept abreast of the latest scholarship.” Judge Dewey contended that Scudder’s refusal to consider “new scientific studies” in the church’s response to “rising social problems” was inexcusable. Although Judge Dewey’s liberalism was probably not as hostile toward religion as that of his namesake, philosopher-pragmatist John Dewey (whom Du Bois would eventually work with during his affiliation with the NAACP and Crisis), it is a fact that his liberalism was so threatening that Scudder roundly criticized him from the pulpit.?°

18

Chapter 1

While the effect of Judge Dewey’s liberalism and scholarly ideas upon Du Bois is purely speculative, Du Bois’s intimate familiarity with Dewey’s philosophy is without question. Aside from a rather troubling encounter with Judge Dewey that might have landed him in jail, young Du Bois and his mother were communicants in the church's Sunday school where Dewey taught.?° They would have certainly been exposed to Dewey's teachings—if only for a limited time—because Dewey resigned from the church in 1879 amidst controversy, but returned in 1885. Du Bois points to the possibility that he might have taken classes directly with Judge Dewey when he recounted, “I grew up in a liberal Congregational Sunday school.” Even when the new church was erected (the former church burned down in a fire in 1882), Du Bois mentions, “I was quite in my element and led in discussions, with embarrassing questions, and long disquisitions. | learned much of the Hebrew Scriptures. I think I must have been both popular and a little dreaded, but I was very happy.”?7 Moreover, while Mary Du Bois became an official member of the First Congregational Church in 1878, it is entirely possible that the Du Bois family had already been in attendance there for some time. This might explain why a late-nineteenth-century African American woman with virtually no educational experience was so resolute about her son’s own educational pursuits. Finally, Judge Dewey lived on the corner of the Du Bois family’s street and in a house with which Du Bois was very familiar, for he often visited an invalid resident there. He later expressed his fervent admiration for the judge’s daughter’s “phenomenal mathematical ability.”28 Regardless of the extent of his influence on Du Bois personally, Dewey’s liberalism left an enduring mark on the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, as well as the wider Great Barrington community. When he withdrew his membership from the church, Dewey did not completely remove himself, or his doctrines, from Great Barrington communal

life. Church records indicate that, after

his withdrawal, Dewey attended the nearby St. James Episcopal Church, and he spoke in 1881 at the local Great Barrington Bible Society about his liberal views in relation to Congregationalism. Du Bois’s autobiographies, personal correspondence, and other writings do not indicate if he specifically attended Dewey's lecture at the Great Barrington Bible Society, but Du Bois’s correspondent writings in New York Globe indicate that he was an avid student of Bible readings in the Great Barrington area.

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

19

Even so, what an impressionable Du Bois probably observed in Dewey's activities within the First Congregational Church and within the Great Barrington area was a quality that would soon be manifested in his own future career—an unwavering confidence in the ability of advanced learning, as opposed to strict dogmatic religious authority, to facilitate moral, intellectual, and social discussion. Such a premise was probably what Dewey depended upon to come close to rivaling a theologically heady and firmly dogmatic minister like Evarts Scudder. Dewey well understood that, as long as Calvinism and the King James Bible remained central to fashioning arguments about the church's role in civil affairs, there would be no hopes of competing with Scudder for influence within the Great Barrington community and the First Congregational Church. Therefore, he devised an alternative method for circumventing the moral authority of Scudder’s pulpit—a method that gave primacy to a liberally informed, not theologically informed, education. And like Dewey, Du Bois’s earliest writings as a fifteen-year-old correspondent in Great Barrington—which were partly directed towards a group of deeply religious African American A.M.E. Zion churchgoers from the South—relied upon formal and liberal education that easily surpassed the training possessed by both African American parishioners and their pastors. In the final analysis, Du Bois’s earliest communications and interactions with these recently transplanted citizens give evidence of a bourgeoning agnostic—who while unable to disabuse this southern African American community of the many religious and anti-intellectual beliefs that that they held fast to—could nonetheless challenge them with calls for a higher brand of morality and ethics in personal, social, and educational matters. David Levering Lewis’s final assessment of the place of the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington in shaping Du Bois’s moral,

ethical,

and

intellectual

formation

also

provides

a useful

framework for understanding Du Bois’s first public periodical writings espousing these same virtues within T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe while still a youth in Great Barrington: “Within a few years after the memorable 1883 dedication ceremony for the grand church building [after the preceding one was destroyed by fire] he would hold theological beliefs that would have scandalized Reverend Scudder; but Willie’s ethical beliefs would remain, in their Calvinist essence, as firm as the dolomite from the Hopkins quarry used to rebuild Scudder’s church. The promise of salvation would lie in the social sciences, not

20

Chapter 1

the Bible; damnation lay in store for those who led unexamined lives or who squandered their talents.”?° While teaching many of the moral and ethical virtues that Du Bois would later recommend to blacks, Great Barrington’s First Congregational Church and its minister, Evarts Scudder, neglected to emphasize the kind of advanced education that Du Bois felt was necessary for African Americans amidst the unique social obstacles they were likely to face. Noting Judge Dewey’s difficulties, Du Bois understood the obvious futility of infusing social concerns and liberal education into the walls of a Protestant church, especially a southern African American one. Devising a secular method, then, of communicating intelligent moral and ethical leadership unaffiliated with churches and religious organizations to the African American community would become an unintended result of Du Bois’s youthful ambition when he began writing for T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe. And these sentiments which arose during Du Bois‘s moral, ethical, and intellectual formation at the hands of the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington and are reflected in his first public periodical writings would be repeated throughout his entire career, although Du Bois’s growing disaffection for the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington and its orthodoxy would extend to all dogma associated with churches and religious organizations, particularly African American churches. Over his lifetime, Du Bois’s local periodical writing would expand into a national periodical writing career that would establish his reputation as the foremost African American leader in America espousing both social justice and liberally informed morality and ethics; the local Great Barrington African American audience would become a national African American audience; and, finally, Du Bois’s educational acumen, which would ulti-

mately undergird his agnostic philosophy, would progress from a local to an international stage and be unrivalled by any African American in the United States.

NOTES 1. Howard Conn, The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington (Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire Courier, 1943), 6. 2. Charles Taylor, The History of Great Barrington (Great Barrington, Mass.: Clark W. Bryan and Co., 1882) 168.

The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington

21

3. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois (New York: International Publishing, 1968), 62. 4. See Shirley Graham Du Bois, His Day is Marching On (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1971), 198. Here Du Bois recounts this information, which he apparently learned from Taylor's history. 5. Taylor, The History of Great Barrington, 186. 6. David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography ofaRace (1868-1919) (New York: Henry Holt, 1993) 12, 32. 7. Du Bois, Autobiography, 63, 88. 8. Conn, The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, 107. 9. Du Bois, Autobiography, 88. 10. Conn, The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, 38. 11. Joseph S. Clark, Historical Sketch of Congregational Churches in Massachusetts (Boston: Congregational Board of Publication, 1858), 296. 12. Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography ofa Race, 50. 13. Manning Marable, WE.B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat (Boston: Twayne, 1986), 37. 14. Du Bois, Autobiography, 277. 15. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “The Conservation of Races,” W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader, ed. David Levering Lewis, 26 (New York: Henry Holt,

1995).

16. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “To W.E.B. Du Bois,” June 18, 1928, in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: Volume I (Selections, 1877-1934), ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 1, 374 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1973). 17. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, in Du Bois on Reform: Periodicalbased Leadership for Blacks, ed. Brian Johnson (Lanham, Md.: Alta Mira Press, 2005), contains Du Bois’s reform writings published in Crisis and other newspaper and magazine periodicals published between 1883 and 1934. 18. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “The Winds of Time,” in Writings by Du Bois in Periodicals Edited by Others, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 4 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1982). 19. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “Forum of Fact and Opinion,” in Writings by Du Bois in Periodicals Edited by Others, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 4 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1982).

20. William

Edward

Burghardt

Du

Bois, Dusk

of Dawn

(New York:

Schocken, 1940), 325-26.

21. 22. 23. enna: 24.

Du Bois, Autobiography, 75. Du Bois, Autobiography, 80. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Story of Benjamin Franklin (ViWorld Peace Council, 1956). William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “Thrift,” Crisis, January 1921, vol.

21, no. 3, 101-102.

Chapter 1

22

DUB. 26. Ze 28. PIS):

Conn, The First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, 38. Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 34. Du Bois, Autobiography, 277, 289. Du Bois, Autobiography, 90. Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 50.

2 T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe (Freeman) and Great Barrington’s “Very Religious” and “Strange” Settlers

In his last autobiography, Du Bois describes a group of newly arrived African American settlers to Great Barrington, New England as “contrabands,” “[a] littke uncouth,” “very religious,” “strange,” “not old families like the Burghardts,” and participants in a “segregated institution” called the Christian church.'! Though such a description appears near the twilight of Du Bois’s life, it is quite evident that, even as a New England African American teenager, Du Bois found this newly transplanted group of southern African Americans and their religion disconcerting. Their brand of religion would be noticeably different from what he had come to know from his early Congregationalist experiences in New England. To this point, an advanced liberal arts education invigorated Du Bois’s religious and ethical life (if it may be described as such), and this group’s religion—without strong literacy or advanced training—was, to Du Bois, no religion at all. From April 14, 1883, to May 16, 1885, the teen-aged Du Bois published roughly twenty-seven periodical articles in T. Thomas Fortune's New York Globe (Freeman). These were one-paragraph entries containing a motley of news bits and personal commentary that appeared under captions entitled, “Great Barrington Notes,” “Great Barrington News,” “Great Barrington Items,” “Great Barrington Briefs,” and “From the Berkshire Hills.” Por these brief entries, Fortune’s paper would have been interested in news pertaining only to Great Barrington African Americans, but, when Du Bois first began writing these “ou

MWe

D3!

24

Chapter 2

paragraphs, Great Barrington had only a handful of African American residents, including Du Bois’s family. Without a doubt, Du Bois’s pe-

riodical writings appearing from 1883 to 1885 would not have been possible were it not for this group of new settlers consisting of freedmen and women from the South who established an African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in Great Barrington in the late 1870s. Du Bois’s uncanny appointment with Great Barrington’s newest African American settlers provided him with a prototype cast for those African Americans he would soon meet when he departed Great Barrington for Fisk University. The group was southern and obsessed with religious practices that left little room for academic, intellectual, and social engagement. Very much similar to the qualities he observed in Judge Justin Dewey, what Du Bois might have seen in T. Thomas Fortune, who was a successful African American editor of one of the most vibrant latenineteenth-century African American periodicals, was his ability to offer intelligent African American opinion that was largely unaffiliated with churches or religious organizations. Since Du Bois was himself an anomaly among the newest Great Barrington African American community members, partly because of his academic training and rearing in a New England common school and community, Du Bois was able to further distinguish himself from this populace when he began writing in Fortune’s New York Globe (Freeman). T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe, which became New York Freeman in 1884, garnered the highest respect among African American newspapers appearing in the 1880s. I. Garland Penn suggests, “It can be truly said that Mr. Fortune [was] an excellent specimen of what the Afro-American may do in journalism and what he will do. He |was] surely the prince of [Black] Journalists.”? John Hope Franklin makes a similar suggestion when he writes, “Among such leaders the essayists, historians and the editors of the Afro-American press were almost as influential as the religious leaders [and] T. Thomas Fortune was surely preeminent among the secular black leaders of his time.”3 When Fortune arrived as a young man in New York around 1880, he began working in the printer's trade for John Dougall’s Weekly Witness, a religious paper.* Shortly thereafter, he met regularly with a

group ilar to gun a Walter

of African American men whose intellectual interests were simhis own. One of these was George Parker who had recently be“little weekly tabloid” entitled The Rumor. Fortune along with Sampson, who helped secure Fortune's job at the Weekly Wit-

New York Globe (Freeman) and Great Barrington’s Settlers

25

ness, “wrote copy and set type for Rumor at night” while still working for Dougall’s paper in the day. After about a year, Fortune was quickly recognized as the far superior writer and editor to either Parker or Sampson. During this same period, Parker's tabloid came under financial pressure, which allowed Fortune to become a partner. As partner, he then insisted upon changing the paper’s name from Rumor to New York Globe in July 1881. The New York Globe continued operating under the joint partnership of Fortune and Parker, and “in three short years the Globe had won national recognition and its editor had gained the reputation of the most brilliant, fearless and uncompromising journalist of his race.”> However, Fortune never formally secured legal proprietorship, and, after the paper was besieged by turmoil, Parker mortgaged the paper without Fortune’s knowledge. Shortly thereafter, Fortune was able to reverse his circumstances, and, in 1884, New York Globe became New York Freeman under his sole pro-

prietorship. Like most African American papers in the 1880s, the New York Globe was a four-page weekly. However, it “was remarkably free from the grammatical and typographical errors which marred most Negro papers.” In keeping with its name, the New York Globe thought its mission to be broad and universal in scope—insofar as African American readership was concerned—and the newspaper sought to provide as much information pertaining to African Americans as possible within its four pages. Its self-stated aim was “to supply the place ofa National Journal for the colored people of the United States.” The New York Globe had a staff of able correspondents in many cities in the North and the South who reported news of race conditions and political developments related to the race. Also, newsletters from smaller communities reported local trivia including activities of churches and fraternal organizations; one reporter of such information was the teenager Du Bois. However, what established New York Globe's reputation among African American periodicals was Fortune's editorials, “which elicited favorable comment even in the white press.”° Despite his cantankerous relationship with Fortune during his adult career, when Fortune became a staunch supporter for Du Bois’s future nemesis, Booker T. Washington, Du Bois possessed a profound admiration for Fortune and his abilities.? He expressed as much in the May 1907 Horizon (a periodical Du Bois edited briefly before he became founding editor of Crisis magazine in 1910) when recalling this brief tenure with Fortune’s paper: “I remember my first knowing of the

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man. It was about 1883, while I was a lad in the High School. I became an agent for his paper and wrote crude little news notes from our town. He wrote me an encouraging letter—a good long sympathetic letter. That letter I shall not forget. No matter how far the writer has fallen and groveled in the dust [referring to his support of Washington] I shall ever remember that hand ofhelp. His fierce brave voice made men of the nation hearken even while it scared them.”® In a January 3, 1935, letter written to Fred Moore who purchased New York Age from Fortune in 1907, Du Bois also remarked: “I remember that my first printed words appeared in the New York Age sometime about 1882 or 1883 while T. Thomas Fortune was editor of what was then New York Globe. | was the local correspondent in Great Barrington, Mass. There were only about a score of colored people in the town so that I was rather put to it for news but I managed to sell about 10 copies of the New York Age each week [. . .] I can therefore claim that [New York] Age started me upon my literary career.”? This letter would lead to Du Bois contributing an article appearing in the New York Age's fiftieth anniversary issue. In it, he expressed: “I had been familiar with the New York Age from before the time of its birth, that is when it was the Globe and the Freeman under T. Thomas Fortune and there had been brought up in my mind the ideal of a fighting editor expressing frankly and freely what he thought and giving at least something of the news concerning colored people.”!° Besides Du Bois, Fortune was admired in many circles for his bold and articulate writing, his intelligent opinion, and, above all else, his sophisticated writing about issues confronting African American life. The ferocity of Fortune’s editorials knew no bounds in their denunciation of hindrances facing the African American community—including religious organizations. In one editorial appearing in the New York Globe, Fortune condemned white churches “as arsenals of narrowness, subterfuge and caste [. . .] We get a great deal of charity but most of it tends to our degradation.”'! In spite of Fortune’s noted resistance to religious philanthropic efforts, he became a member of the Colored Press Association, which was comprised of not only African American secular news organizations, but religious ones as well. The Colored Press Association—including its religious branches—was organized in part to remedy religion’s failure to confront moral, ethical, and social issues plaguing the African American community. John Cromwell, editor of the People’s Advocate (and later a founding member along with Du Bois of Rev. Alexander Crummell’s American Negro Academy),

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took the initiative in calling the Colored Press Association’s first convention in 1880.'? Fortune would eventually rise to its presidency in the late 1890s, and his talents and abilities were so well documented that African American religious organizations had no choice but to succumb to and tolerate his presidency in spite of his stinging criticisms and denunciations of African American and white religious organizations.!3 Fortune thought the value of educated African Americans to be not only equal to that of any other public servant in the black community (particularly preachers), but even more necessary. One of Fortune's editorials affirms this idea: “The editors of the great newspapers are more absolutely the servants of the people than any of the servants placed in positions of trust and profit and power by their votes. They are more faithful to the people’s interests, they are more inaccessible to the allurements of corruptionists, they have generally a clearer and more thorough understanding of the rights of the people and voice their demands with greater accuracy and force than any other class of men in the Republic, simply because they live nearer to the people and are in many respects the servants in a more general sense of the public opinion to which they give voice [. . .] An editor, with no readers of his paper, is in a much more pitiable plight than a lawyer without briefs, or a preacher without a charge.”!4 Thus, for Fortune, African American editorial writing was tantamount to serving in a public office—including a pastoral one—because of its close proximity to and services rendered on behalf of African American people. One important service he rendered with his editorials was to give an intelligent “voice” to the desires and wants of black citizens who were generally ignored or silenced. His singular ability to express himself so intelligently was due, in part, to the education he received as a youth. Fortune possessed strong Anglo-American physical features, which enabled him to blend in with whites and obtain early school training in the South; this was an extraordinarily rare opportunity for most latenineteenth-century African Americans in the South. Like Fortune—though still a teenager—Du Bois understood that his unusual pedigree afforded him a distinct role among Great Barrington African Americans, particularly the recent arrivals, and his first commentaries in T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Globe (Freeman) relied upon this exceptional background. One could hardly suggest that Du Bois’s future criticisms of African American churches and religious organizations were due only to Fortune's influence since many other

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important figures and experiences helped shape his philosophy of social and moral reform. Furthermore, none of Du Bois’s writings appearing in New York Globe contains these more mature views. However, one would be remiss to deny that Du Bois might have been influenced by Fortune's idea that intelligent, secular African American opinion in matters civil and sacred would always receive a public hearing in spite of its disassociation from explicit religious efforts. And this quality in Du Bois’s career as an agnostic probably began in his earliest writings within Fortune’s newspaper. While it is clear that Du Bois sometimes visited the A.M.E. Zion church along with his mother, there is very little information available about the particular contours of this group. While it is certain that the A.M.E. Zion was founded in Great Barrington sometime in 1861, much of what is known about them can be inferred from Du Bois’s rather prescriptive and opinionated articles, which were aimed primarily at this group. The church heard from guest pastors such as Reverend J. Anderson and the Reverend J. F. Lloyd, and they often met at different church members’ homes. Most often they met at the home of W. M. Crosley, as well as Julia Sumner Hall on Main Street. The church finally purchased land to build a church on Railroad Street in LSSiere

Du Bois reported the times and places of many of the church’s activities. In the May 21, 1883, New York Globe, he noted the time and place of the A.M.E. Zion “quarterly meeting” and the schedule of “the ladies of the Sewing Society.”'° Similarly, in that year’s June 30 column, he indicated “the ladies of the A.M.E. Zion Church will hold their monthly supper at Mrs. J. Moore’s.”'7 Also, Du Bois attended a few of the church’s worship services and commented upon the preachers’ sermons in his columns as well. In a June 2 column, he noticed “the largest attendance was in the evening, when Rev. Mr. Anderson preached a very effective sermon from Isaiah” and services held “under the auspices of the Rev. J. E. Lloyd of Middletown, Connecticut [. . .] were interesting, although not as fully attended as was to be wished.”!8 However, Du Bois’s columns also commented upon the private lives of A.M.E. Zion members as well, which suggests that he believed his standing among these community members to be solid enough for the personal nature of the items he reported. Du Bois reported in one column, “Mrs. Mary J. Walker, the sister of Mrs. Carrie Jackson of this place, made a short visit here a few weeks ago,” and, in another column, he communicates a revealing amount

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of information concerning another community member.! He wrote, “Mr. John Ferries, who has long been an applicant for a pension, has at length received over twelve hundred dollars as back pay.”2° Nonetheless, what is most telling about Du Bois’s New York Globe writings is what appears to be a young man who sees himself as this community’s intellectual, social—and even more surprising—moral and ethical leader. In spite of his social Salvationist aspirations prior to departing for Fisk University in 1885, Du Bois’s quest to lead southern African Americans toward social advancement actually began at home. For Du Bois’s columns display the rather remarkably presumptive idea that his standing as an able African American teenager with New England common school training could easily offer direction to a group of uncultured and highly religious southern African Americans without regard to the author's age, race, or religion; he must simply possess the requisite knowledge. Promulgating moral and ethical principles that he thought the former southerners should learn, such as temperance, unity, industry, stewardship, and racial pride, the teenage Du Bois not only named these estimable virtues, he provided what he thought to be their accompanying practices. In his very first published writing, appearing on April 14, 1883, the fifteen-year-old Du Bois wrote, “The citizens of the town are forming a Law and Order Society to enforce the laws against liquor selling which have been sadly neglected for the past year or two. It would be a good plan if some of the colored men should join it.”?! Du Bois’s recommendation for African Americans to cooperate with members of the white local community to prevent the rise of alcoholism revealed his innate ability to gather empirical evidence in order to make informed suggestions for African American community members. In a way, that became a lifelong practice when he would become progenitor of the field of African American sociology through his conduct of the Atlanta University sociological studies on African Americans. The youthful Du Bois observed what was going on in the town at large, researched all available resources, and then proceeded to make recommendations to the African American community about what they should do. Du Bois’s commingling of investigation and social commentary is found in other pieces as well. For instance, during a September 1883 visit described as his “great-

est boyhood trip,” Du Bois traveled to New Haven, Connecticut, to visit his grandfather and on the way he observed large and prosperous black communities.22 Obviously impressed, he wrote in his column

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about the experience, “Your correspondent having been away on vacation no items have appeared for some time. During my trip I visited Providence, New Bedford and Albany, and was pleased to see the industry and wealth of many of our race.” Yet, in noting “the absence of literary societies [. . .|,” Du Bois suggested, “it seems to me as if this of

all things ought not to be neglected [in these communities].”?3 On the surface, Du Bois’s suggestion does not appear to have any bearing upon Great Barrington African Americans; however, four months earlier, Du Bois made the same suggestion to the hometown residents. At that time, he remarked, “it would be the best thing that could be done

for the colored people if such a [literary] society could be formed here.”24 Du Bois’s disappointment at the absence of literary societies in more prosperous African American communities simply reiterated to his Great Barrington readers the absolute necessity of having a literary society in their far less prosperous community—particularly since it appears that Du Bois’s real ambition was to become a central figure in a similar society. This ambition was revealed almost a year later in a May 13, 1884, column, when Du Bois added the notation, “Those intending to replenish their libraries are advised to consult The Globe correspondent.”?> Du Bois’s leadership proclivities directed toward reform of the social behavior of African Americans are seen in his examinations ofthis group’s participation in local politics as well. The September 23, 1883, entry is probably the fifteen-year-old’s most distinguishable opinion written in Fortune’s newspaper. The young Du Bois was either remarkably pompous or extraordinarily shrewd in his manipulation of local history to support his recommendations to community members. His article relies upon the results of Great Barrington’s 1882 elections, which provided the basis for his suggestions about better African American decision making in the 1883 elections. In a relatively lengthy three-paragraph entry, Du Bois offered candid suggestions for Great Barrington African Americans beginning with the observation, “The political contest is near at hand and the colored men of the town should prepare themselves accordingly. They should acquaint themselves with the political status and attitudes of the candidates toward them, particularly their representatives. The choice of Governor should also demand a good share of their attention |. . .] If they will only act in concert they may become a power not to be despised. It would be a good plan if they should meet and decide which way would be most advantageous for them to cast their votes.”

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In addition to Du Bois’s recommendation for the 1883 elections, he goes on to offer a candid rebuke for their attitudes about the previous year's election: “Those who voted for Gen. Butler last year ‘just to see what he would do; have found it a pretty costly experiment. They will see that while preaching economy and refusing the necessary appropriations to charitable institutions, he has spent an immense sum of money on needless investigations, such as Tewksbury and the like. The colored men may well ask themselves how they have been benefited by his administration, although he professes to be their friend.2° Du Bois’s suggestion to Great Barrington African Americans to “prepare themselves accordingly” and to “act in concert” implies that they did not do so in the previous year. Moreover, when he mocked their “just to see what he would do” attitude, he indicated that this notion is both deplorable to a democratic process and an unintelligible position that African American Great Barrington community members could ill afford. Du Bois’s observations of other unprincipled customs of Great Barrington African Americans in local politics were also pointed out in his October 14, 1884, entry where he reported, “In the political parade held here recently the colored voters marched with the white, and were neither tucked in the rear nor parceled off by themselves“27 . Du Bois’s earliest writings appearing in Fortune’s New York Globe tried to answer a significant question that would be repeated throughout his adult career: How might educated leadership help train African Americans to overcome distinct social challenges? Even as a teenager, Du Bois thought the solution was found in liberal and social applications that could only be acquired through advanced liberal education. However, while many of Great Barrington’s “religious” and “strange” settlers were probably unfamiliar with these secular remedies, they were intensely familiar with their religious institutions. As a result, the most obvious difficulty realized by even the teenaged Du Bois—who observed Dewey’s trials within the First Congregational Church of Great Barrington—was how to infuse “religious” Great Barrington African Americans with educational knowledge for practical social morality and ethics. What Du Bois discovered at the tender age of fifteen was that the most effective tool for educated persons to communicate these ideas to southern and “very religious” African Americans was some medium besides the church. Du Bois emulated T. Thomas Fortune's method of expressing his intelligent and sophisticated opinion on African

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American social problems through an alternative “pulpit,” namely the secular periodical. Similar to Fortune, but within a smaller range, Du Bois’s voice was unparalleled in the Great Barrington African American community because of his public stature as, arguably, its most literate African American. Whether or not the teenaged Du Bois was explicitly aware of this conception when writing for Fortune’s New York Globe is ultimately unknowable; what is clear is that the young Du Bois was already finding his agnostic voice and intellectual stratagem (outside the walls of the church) for leading African Americans in moral, ethical, and social reform efforts, consciously or otherwise, in Fortune’s newspaper.

NOTES 1. Du Bois, Autobiography, 83, 90. 2. I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and its Editors (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 38. 3. John Hope Franklin, “Editor's Foreword,” in T: Thomas Fortune: Militant Journalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), vii. 4. Emma Lou Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune: Militant Journalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 37. To date, Thornbrough’s study of Fortune is the only book-length study devoted to the life and career of Fortune. 5. Thornbrough, T: Thomas Fortune, 37-38, 66-67. 6. Thornbrough, T: Thomas Fortune, 44-45. 7. In 1905, Du Bois published a newspaper column entitled “Debit and Credit,” which appeared in the January 1905 Voice of the Negro. The article condemns black newspapers, particularly T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Age, for allowing Booker T. Washington to influence their opinion through patronage. Fortune was also suspected to have been Booker T. Washington's primary ghostwriter for a number of years. In addition, Fortune attacked Du Bois and the NAACP for maligning the policies of Washington. See Louis Harland, Booker T. Washington: I, The Making of a Black Leader, 1856-1901 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975); and Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune. 8. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “The Lash,” in Selections from the Horizon, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, 16 (White Plains, N.Y.: Kraus‘Thomson Organization, 1985). 9. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “To Fred R. Moore,” 3 January 1935, in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: Volume II Selections 1934-1944, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 2, 45 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976).

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10. Du Bois, “The Negro Press,” in Writings by Du Bois in Periodicals Edited by Others, ed. and comp. Aptheker, vol. 3, 24. 11. Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune, 56. 12. Alfred A. Moss, The American Negro Academy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 34. 13. Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune, 40. 14. Penn, The Afro-American Press and its Editors, 481-83. 15. “Fifty Sites in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Associated with the Civil Rights Activist, W.E.B. Du Bois,” a publication of the Great Barrington Land Conservancy and Great Barrington Historical Society in conjunction with Upper Housatonic Valley Heritage Area, Lakeville Journal (2002), 5. 16. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “May 21,” in Newspaper Columns by W.E.B. Du Bois (1883-1944), ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 1, 3 (White Plains, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1986). All of Du Bois’s New York Globe and New York Freeman writings will be taken from this collection. Note also that the title of the column is dated, on average, four days prior to press at Fortune’s newspaper. 17. Du Bois, “June 26,” Newspaper Columns, 5. 18. Du Bois, “May 29,” Newspaper Columns, 4; and “April 8,” Newspaper Columns, 13. 19. Du Bois, “July 28,” Newspaper Columns, 15. 20. Du Bois, “June 26,” Newspaper Columns, 5. 21. Du Bois, “April 10,” Newspaper Columns, 1. 22. Du Bois, Autobiography, 98. 23. Du Bois, “September 4,” Newspaper Columns, 6. 24. Du Bois, “May 1,” Newspaper Columns, 2. 25. Du Bois, “May 13,” Newspaper Columns, 14. 26. Du Bois, “September 23,” Newspaper Columns, 7. 27. Du Bois, “October 14,” Newspaper Columns, 17.

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” At the meeting, a special finance committee was appointed to try to remedy Crisis’s financial problems, which it was unable to do, and, on June 18, 1929, Crisis came under the full control of an editorial board consisting of four members including Du Bois. Although Du Bois saw the metaphorical “handwriting on the wall” concerning the ending of his control over Crisis’s printed matter, he still tried to edit and manage the Crisis as if no changes had been made. One piece of board correspondence addressed to Joel Spingarn by a fellow board member suggests as much: “My dear Mr. Spingarn: When we voted to change the policy of the Crisis and assume responsibility for its management, etc., I thought the Association intended to take over the whole thing, merge departments as much as possible, cut out duplicating expenses and run the thing just as a bank or any other business concern might do after a merger. ‘Thus far it seems that we have changed in just one particular the old Crisis plan and that is to pay the editor's salary. It seems to me that the Directors should know where the money goes if they are to vote to accept the report. No editor or business manager of any paper in New York or elsewhere would read a report like that and expect to have it approved by a Board. It is unbusiness-like to say the least and gives the impression that it is none ofthe Directors’ business how the money is spent.”%8 It was becoming increasingly evident that Du Bois would not willingly relinquish his control of the magazine he had founded and controlled over the last two decades. Even in 1931 when the board of Directors called for the very first analysis of Crisis’s finances in order to solve the magazine’s fiscal problems, Du Bois remained obstinate. One could certainly sympathize with Du Bois’s predicament. He had always admitted to his lack of business management skills, and he had relied on circulation numbers to overcome this disadvantage. Now the proud Crisis patriarch was having this weakness exposed, and the board members were capitalizing upon that vulnerability. Du Bois

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might have easily secured a capable business manager during his long editorship, but his inability or sheer refusal to work closely with friends and associates hindered him from obtaining what might have been a much longer career editorship. One of his business managers, Irene Malvan, was driven to resign after three years of continued conflicts with Du Bois. Furthermore, Mary White Ovington, who had remained a consistent supporter of Du Bois throughout his tenure with the organization, was eventually herself rebuffed by Du Bois’s temperament. In a letter dated December 20, 1930, Ovington tried to state the predicament as pleasantly as possible in an effort to allow Du Bois to bow out gracefully: “As time has gone on the organization has become increasingly important and the Crisis less important not just in relation to the Association but in relation to the Negro world [. . .] It is doing a useful interesting work but it is not as essential to Negro progress and to radical Negro thought as it once was [. . .] Since that is the case the magazine is bound increasingly to become an adjunct to the Association rather than an important magazine itself |. . .] IfI am right in this I cannot but think that whoever may be secretary the Crisis will not give you the position that you formerly held. You will have less and less control of it |. . .] Would you wish to be a member of the staff with the rest?” And in a grandiloquent manner that was largely characteristic of Du Bois’s relationships with other executive board members, he definitively responded: “I will consider no other proposition nor will I work with the NAACP under any other conditions.”°° During his final three years as Crisis editor, from 1931-1934, Du Bois faced similar hassles from a board that was becoming increasingly emboldened to relieve him of editorial control of the magazine. (He had effectively begun his relocation back to Atlanta University in 1931 where he would chair the institution’s sociology department until 1944, when he returned briefly to the NAACP

only to be ousted

again shortly thereafter.) This new state of affairs was most glaringly obvious when Du Bois recommended that the editorial board consist only of colored members, and he was unanimously voted down. Nevertheless, Du Bois’s proposition to finally have Crisis incorporated was agreed to, which was perhaps the final compromise between Du Bois and NAACP executive leaders. Incorporation was an attractive option because it would prevent debt liability from falling solely on Du Bois or the NAACP itself. More significantly, Crisis’s incorporation in 1933

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appears to have been an attempt to create a mythical straw man to account for the twenty-four year-long existence of an institutional periodical being run by one individual’s philosophy and not an organization, an arrangement that saved the NAACP’s white leaders from a rather embarrassing admission that one man—an African American at that—could do such a thing for such a long period. In the end, however, Du Bois might have been much more embarrassed than the organization by the turn of events. Again, similar to his abrupt disassociation from the American Negro Academy and his criticism of its leaders, Du Bois recommended Crisis’s cessation on April 10, 1933. Whether Du Bois’s recommendation was clearly related to the magazine’s existing fiscal problems (which he indicated), or the inevitable fact that he would soon have to part ways with the periodical, is difficult to tell. Certainly, the latter suggestion is not without warrant. When Du Bois submitted his letter of resignation, he suggested that the decision was based upon his disagreement with the board’s motion, “That Crisis is the organ of the Association and no salaried officer of the Association shall criticize the policy, work, or officers of the Association in the pages of the Crisis; that any such criticism should be brought directly to the Board of Directors and its publication approved or disapproved.”°! The board’s decision came in response to Du Bois’s February 1934 Crisis article entitled, “A Free Forum.” The article publicly criticized the board’s policies towards his editorial control ofCrisis stating, “From the day of its beginning, more than 23 years ago, The Crisis has sought to maintain a free forum for the discussion of the Negro problem. The Editor has had advantage in time and space for expressing his own opinion |. . .| And above all he

has sought not to make the NAACP responsible for his individual ideas [. . .| Some think it best that the organ should represent the organization. The thought of an organization is always in flux and is never definitely recorded until after long consideration. Meantime a living periodical reflects opinions and not decisions [. . .] This has given vividness and flexibility to the magazine and at the same time has allowed differences of opinion to be thoroughly threshed out.”°2 This article, which was one of Du Bois’s final Crisis articles, actually describes much of what took place during his controversial tenure as editor of the NAACP’s periodical. Perhaps Du Bois was not at all concerned about the Board's resolution. Maybe his resignation was in-

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stead an awkward surrender to the fact that Crisis would no longer be a “living periodical” reflecting those opinions that helped secure his status as an African American social teader. Although NAACP board members (with Walter White, another executive board member, as the new editor) would soon assume control of Crisis, none of their attempts to limit Du Bois’s control while he was at the helm of its institutional organ had ever been successful. NAACP organizational leaders were simply not in the position to bargain with the only African American uniquely qualified to provide what the institution was seeking. Unfortunately for the organization, Du Bois understood this all too well; he was well aware that he possessed an unequalled knowledge of the Negro community personally and scientifically, and he used this advantage to secure institutional toleration and editorial autonomy for his own program of African American reform. When Du Bois reflected upon this period as editor of the NAACP’s Crisis magazine, he made a remarkable confession to this effect: “I found myself therefore seeking support from an organization for a program in which they did not wholeheartedly believe.”®? His program was committed to establishing an agnostic brand of African American leadership disengaged with religion for helping to reform African American behavior. While this utilization of the periodical sometimes corresponded to the NAACP’s larger aims, ultimately the program was a continuation of Du Bois’s life-long obsession with the periodical as a “pulpit” to address moral, ethical, and social shortcomings in the African American community that ultimately ran counter to religious organizations who were previously seen as the African American community's leaders in such reform efforts. Even so, while the NAACP’s organizational leadership neither affirmed nor censured what gradually became a persistent theme in many of Du Bois’s scholarly and nonscholarly publications—particularly those appearing within Crisis—it was still not immune from some of its unintended fallout. Since Du Bois had succeeded in becoming the organization’s most prominent representative through his firm control of Crisis magazine with unquestioned editorial control

for twenty-four years, it is not at all surprising that the NAACP’s highly visible periodical (with the agnostic Du Bois at the helm) was positioned and often perceived as a potential rival to African American church leadership.

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NOTES 1. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies” in Newspaper Columns by W.E.B. Du Bois (1883-1944), ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 2, 477 (White Plains, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson, 1986). 2. See William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Atlanta University Publications. 3. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” in Writings in Periodicals Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections From The Brownies’ Book, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, 5 (White Plains, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson, 1980). All “As the Crow Flies” citations from the Brownies’ Book will be taken from Aptheker’s collection. 4. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” 58. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” 55. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” 69. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” 117. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” 131. onuau 9. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” in Newspaper Columns, 768. 10. Du Bois’s writings also appeared in federal labor bulletins and academic journals. This study does not include these writings because those writings contained substantial documentation, which was consistent with Du Bois’s explicit sociological investigations. The generic descriptions for these periodicals are taken from Frank Luther Mott's, A History of American Magazines 1886-1905, vols. |-V (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). 11. Du Bois, “To W.E.B. Du Bois,” 7 January 1904, in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: (Selections, 1877-1934), 72-73. 12. Du Bois, “To Richard L. Jones” 30 January 1904, The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: (Selections, 1877-1934), 73. 13. Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines 1886-1905, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 514-15. 14. Richard Brodhead’s Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993) describes Charles Chesnutt’s career as a “transaction of authorship.” Brodhead’s discussion is similar to Du Bois's appearances in white periodicals because it relates Chesnutt’s difficulties in “relocating his African American identity” to suit nineteenth-century white publishers and audiences. 15. Ellery Sedgwick, The Atlantic Monthly (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994), 259-60. 16. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Bantam, 1989), 1-10. 17. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 43-53. 18. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 10-30, 19. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, 62-76.

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20. Raymond Wolters, Du Bois and His Rivals (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002), 78. 21. Du Bois, “The Growth of the Niagara Movement,” in Writings by Du Bois in Periodicals Edited by Others, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 1, 274 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1982). 22. William English Walling, “fo Dr. Du Bois,” June 8, 1910, in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: (Selections, 1877-1934), vol. 1, 169-70; Du Bois, “To William English Walling,” in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: (Selections, 1877-1934), vol. 1, 170-71. For a more comprehensive history on the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, see Charles Flint Kellogg, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909-1920), vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976); Warren St. James, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: A Case Study in Pressure Groups (New York: Exposition Press, 1958); Robert Jack, History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Boston: Meador, 1943); Carolyn Wedlin, Inheritors of the Spirit: Mary White Ovington and the Founding of the NAACP (New York: Wiley, 1998); Mary White Ovington, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (New York: Arno Press, 1969); Mary White Ovington, Black and White Sat Down Together (New York: Feminist Press, 1995); Walter White, A Man Called White (New York: Arno Press, 1969); B. Joyce Ross, J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP, 1911-1939 (New York: Athenaeum, 1972). 23. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois (New York: International Publishing, 1968), 155-56. 24. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “A Memorandum to the Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” in Pamphlets and Leaflets by W.E.B. Du Bois, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, 116 (White Plains: Kraus-Thomson, 1986). 25. “Platform Adopted by the National Negro Committee, 1909,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 26. “Platform Adopted by the National Negro Committee, 1909,” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers. 27. “Conference Minutes of the National Federation of Religious Liberals,” Container A-8, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 28. “1915 Annual Report,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 29. First Annual Report (New York: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1911). 30. Ovington, The Walls Came Tumbling Down, 112. 31. “Circle for Negro Relief,” Container 1-3, Reel #1, The Papers of Arthur B. Spingarn, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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32. Lewis, 33. Elliott University of 34. WE.B.

W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race (1868-1919), 417. M. Rudwick, A Study in Minority Group Leadership (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Press, 1960), 170. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices, prod. and dir. Louis Massiah,

1995:

35. “Special Meeting of Executive Committee,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 36.

Kellogg, NAACP, 52.

37. Du Bois, “The Crisis Prospectus,” in Pamphlets and Leaflets by W.E.B. Du Bois, 93. 38. Kellogg, NAACP, 53.

39. See Penelope L. Bullock’s The Afro-American Periodical Press (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), and Roland E. Wolseley’s The Black Press, USA (Ames: lowa State University Press, 1990). 40. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, 292-93. 41. “1925 Annual Report,” Container A-25, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; “1919 Crisis Files,” Container F-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 42. “September 1, 1914 Minutes,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 43. Du Bois, Autobiography, 257. 44. Du Bois, Autobiography, 256. 45. Du Bois, “To Villard,” 18 March 1913, in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: (Selections, 1877-1934). 46. Kellogg, NAACP, 96. Villard did, however, become treasurer and chairman of the finance committee. 47. “December 1, 1914 Minutes,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 48. “Undated Crisis Files,” Container F-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 49. “July 8, 1924 Crisis Files,” Container F-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

50. “1915 Annual Report,” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers. 51. “December 1, 1914 Minutes,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

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52. “July 8, 1918 Minutes,” Container A-25, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 53. “1920 Annual Report,” Container A-25, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 54. “March 31, 1922 Crisis Files,” Container F-1, The National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 55. “1925 Annual Report,” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers. 56. “1927 Annual Report,” Container A-25, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 57. “1929 Board Correspondence,” Container A-29, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 58. “1929 Board Correspondence,” Container A-29, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 59. Mary White Ovington, “To Du Bois,” in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: Volume 1 (Selections, 1877-1934), 430; Du Bois, “To Mary White Ovington” in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: Volume 1 (Selections, 1877-1934), 431.

60. “April 10, 1933 Minutes,” Container A-3, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Du Bois submitted the resignation while he was away lecturing at Atlanta University where he would immediately resume his professorship after quitting as editor. Du Bois also edited some ofhis final issues from Atlanta. 61. “June 11, 1934 Minutes,” Container A-3, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 62. Du Bois, “A Free Forum,” in Writings in Periodicals Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections from The Crisis, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 2, 731 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson, 1983). 63. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, 294.

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6 The Agnostic Pulpit The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races

Du Bois’s long history of being openly critical of African American religious organizations in public address and print—before, during, and after his twenty-four-year tenure as editor of Crisis magazine—was long viewed throughout southern and religious African American communities as a manifestation of his firm agnosticism. After writing the American Negro Academy's manifesto—the 1897 address, “Conservation of Races,” which also heavily criticized the efficacy of religion within the African American community—Du Bois produced a rather robust record of criticisms directed toward African American religious organizations and its leaders. In June 1898 commencement exercises at Fisk University, well before the appearance of Crisis, Du Bois spoke thus: “I now turn to Christian ministers. Churches have not increased the efficiency of its function as a teacher of morals and inspirer to the high ideals of Christianity [. . .] Without ability, without character, they have been urged and pushed into ministry [. . .] qualifications that would be of no service elsewhere are not needed in the church. General desire to be good, glib tongue, is not going to stop stealing and adultery [. . .] Tell them firmly that they are not fitted to be the Heads of the Church of Christ. There and there only is the soil which will transform the mysticism of negro religion into the righteousness of Christianity.”! In “The Problem of Amusement,” an article published in the Southern Workman but originally delivered in 1897 at the General Conference 103

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of Negroes held at Hampton Institute, Du Bois wrote: “When now a young man has grown up feeling the trammels of precept, religion or custom too irksome for him and then at the most impressionable and reckless age of life is suddenly transplanted to an atmosphere of excess, the result is apt to be disastrous. In the case of young colored men or women it is disastrous and the story is daily repeated in every great city of our land, of young men and women who have been reared in an atmosphere of restricted amusement, throwing off when they enter city life, not one restriction, not some restrictions but all and plunging into dissipation and vice.”? In his famous 1903 article, “The Talented Tenth,” Du Bois stated his opinion about the need to replace the past generation of African American preachers: “The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher was ignorant and often immoral and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has been a difficult one.” In September 1906, Du Bois spoke so ill of African American ministers while appearing at the Hampton Negro Conference that he was not asked back for many years: “On the whole the Negroes of the United States are not satisfied with their ministers; all are satisfied with some and some are satisfied with all but on the whole there is deep and widespread dissatisfaction with the average negro minister. There have been among negro ministers in the past so many men of immoral life and men so lacking in dignity and high purpose that continually the educated classes of the race, the young aspiring graduates of our schools, the fathers of rising families have been dissatisfied with this class of men and have withdrawn themselves from them.”4 Afterward, in an 1906 article published in The Red Funnel, Du Bois asserted: “I am simply pointing out that great as those efforts have been they are strikingly inadequate and that under present conditions the majority of Negro children are growing up in ignorance and without the proper moral and intellectual leadership of adequately trained teachers, ministers and heads of families.”5 After founding Crisis, Du Bois suggested in an article titled, “The Negro Church,” “Today the church is still inveighing against dancing and theatre going, still blaming educated people of objecting to silly and empty sermons, boasting and noise, still building churches when people need homes and schools and persisting in crucifying critics rather than realizing the handwriting on the wall.”° Du Bois would later recognize the obvious futility of publicly critiquing African

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American churches within the pages of Crisis when a controversy involving Clarence Darrow forced him to cease such overt criticisms of the African American religious organizations and their leaders until his final years as editor. After resigning from Crisis in 1934, Du Bois would take up public criticisms again in speeches like the one he gave at Fisk University where they were commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his having earned a degree there: “The function of the Negro church, instead of being that of building edifices, paying old debts, holding revivals and staging entertainments, has got to be brought back or shall we say forward to the simple duty of teaching ethics. For this purpose the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament canon will not suffice. We must stop telling children that the lying and deceitful Jacob was better than the lazy Esau |. . .| We can do this but so much by the attacking of outworn superstition and conventional belief as by hearty research into real ethical questions. When is it right to lie? Do low wages mean stealing? Does the prosperity of acountry depend upon the number of its millionaires?”” Du Bois’s criticism of African American religious organizations extended to universities that emphasized religion such as Wilberforce University, which holds the distinct honor of providing him with his first university post. He was invited to give its 1940 commencement address, an invitation that would not fare well for the university's president when Du Bois remarked the following: “I have noted in your president's report the insistence that Wilberforce University is a Christian institution [. . .] It was a matter of emphasis when I was here near a half century ago and it did not impress me. It did not impress me because it was all too evident that what most people at Wilberforce called Christianity was a childish belief in Biblical fairly tales, a word of mouth adherence to dogma and a certain sectarian exclusiveness. It often seemed to me when I lived here a miserable misapprehension of the teaching ofChrist. I do not attempt in the slightest way to interfere with anyone’s sincere and deep-seated belief. If a man believes that faith in Jonah and the whale is necessary to his soul's salvation, I shall not gainsay him. But I do believe that the generation of young folk before me and the world at large have some clear and definite ideals of what real religion calls for and I believe that the citizens of Ohio want tangible proof of certain matters before they will continue to support Wilberforce. Today in plain English if Christianity means anything it means honesty, unselfishness and hard work."* And in an article appearing in the Amsterdam News, nearly a decade

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after leaving Crisis, Du Bois trumpeted: “We can reduce Negro crime to a minimum by our own effort. Por what else in God’s name is all our vaunted religion, our thousands of loud-voiced ministers, our uncouthed churches? Let us test our religion by one and only one measuring rod: reduced crime. All else is poppycock and bald hypocrisy.” It is painstakingly obvious that, when Du Bois made the following recommendation at the conclusion of his Atlanta University sociological study, completed prior to his becoming a founding member ofthe NAACP and founder of its periodical organ, he probably envisioned his agnostic reform ideals appearing in a periodical pulpit like The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races as a way to offer an alternative to the ideology and reform efforts espoused in black churches: “We are passing through that critical period of religious evolution when the low moral and intellectual standard of the past and the curious custom of emotional fervor are no longer attracting the young and ought in justice to repel the intelligent and good [. . .] The great engine of moral uplift is the Christian church. The Negro church is a mighty social power to-day; but it needs cleansing, reviving and inspiring and once purged of its dross it will become as it ought to be, and as it is now, to some extent, the most powerful agency in the moral development and social reform of 9,000,000 Americans of Negro blood.”!® One explanation for suggesting such is to be found in Crisis’s readership. Those southern African American readers to whom Crisis directed its reform rhetoric (similar to his very first readership in Great Barrington) were not only the segment of the African American community most ravaged by improper moral and ethical behavior—this is suggested in Du Bois’s sociological studies as well—but they also tended to have the strongest traditional allegiance to African American church leadership. Although there is no historical documentation found in the NAACP or Crisis archives that might be able to positively identify the actual demographics for Crisis‘’s readership—though Charles Flint Kellogg’s NAACP history suggests that 80 percent of Crisis’s readership were American Negroes—one way to reconstruct its readership is to consider some of the initial problems confronting NAACP’s national membership efforts.!! To be sure, all NAACP members were not Crisis readers and all Crisis readers were not NAACP members, but the NAACP’s national membership and Crisis readership usually ran hand-in-hand because branches and members were pledged to extend Crisis’s circulation as the Association’s official organ.' Yet, until 1916, most of the NAACP’s national membership and

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Crisis readership consisted of northern, educated, and literate African Americans and whites. This sobering reality took center stage when May Childs Nerney made a despondent description of the organization’s first six years after resigning as its secretary: “She was pessimistic about the future of the NAACP because of the failure of either its program or Crisis to reach the masses of colored people.” She suggested, “The illiterate and lowly of the race do not speak our language” and she called for NAACP organizational leaders to revive its previously abandoned “advancement” program.!3 Implicit in Nerney’s suggestion was the idea that reformatory work would help enlist the masses of southern African Americans who desired relief from enormous social and communal problems. In spite of the accuracy of Nerney’s suggestions, her ideas would be rejected because of the association's earlier decision to cede efforts in the reform field to the Urban League. However, the NAACP organizational leadership did heed Nerney’s suggestions in part by selecting James Weldon Johnson in December 1916 to become field secretary and organizer for efforts to increase African American membership in the South at a time when there was a considerable dearth in NAACP members from this segment of the population and when Crisis sales were growing weaker in this community. Whether this was owing to southern and religious African Americans’ increasing distrust of Du Bois is difficult to tell, but Johnson’s appointment would prove invaluable for raising NAACP membership among African American southerners. A man of many talents, James Weldon Johnson was an accomplished African American songwriter, editor of the Booker T. Washington-backed New York Age, essayist, and later novelist. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and, unlike Du Bois, knew the South and its African American citizenry well enough to not offend their religious sensibilities. (Word of Johnson's agnosticism was long muted among African American southerners because of his writing of hymns containing strong religious imagery and his famous God's Trombones.) Still further, board members felt that Johnson’s resume would give him a decided advantage for leading recruitment efforts in the South. Spingarn was also impressed with the fact that Johnson—unlike Du Bois—“was not an academic,” but, similar to Du Bois, he was “free from the stigma of religion” and was reported to have a “stainless character."'4 Johnson’s impact was immediate. Until his arrival in 1918, the NAACP was essentially a northern organization, but his fieldwork led

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to the Dixie District, which added thirteen branches in the South and 738 members to the association. Proof of Johnson’s effectiveness, membership in the South alone climbed to 18,701 in December 1918, which literally doubled the NAACP’s total membership for 1917. This also led to the creation of branches in all the southern states.!5 The tragic summer of 1919, which Johnson infamously termed the “Red Summer,” contributed to membership campaigns in the South as well. Many southern African Americans naturally began looking toward the NAACP’s legal defense team and protest efforts as an important form of legal and ultimately physical protection, and this sentiment ultimately increased the association’s numbers to 310 branches and a total of 91,203 members by the end of 1919.'¢ Frankly, the NAACP’s protection and defense of African Americans was probably the reason that Du Bois’s history of severe criticism of African American religion was tolerated for so long. Without this commitment from the NAACP, southern African Americans might have long since abandoned Du Bois and the NAACP. Yet, insofar as Crisis was concerned, the impact of Johnson's success

among southern African Americans was probably most helpful to Du Bois’s agnostic program. During the years immediately following Johnson’s arrival, the magazine's circulation numbers finally reached the one million mark, and, arguably, the NAACP’s efforts to increase its presence among African American southerners further solidified Du Bois’s control over the content of the magazine. The NAACP’s campaign for African American membership in the South provided justification for Du Bois’s articles addressing those moral, ethical, and social issues that were unique to this segment of the African American population. These issues were also present in urban northern African Americans, but numbers within this population fell well below the mass of Negroes in the South. Reform articles did not appear in the periodical as frequently before the 1918-1920 membership drives in the South. Additionally, Du Bois’s hazy reports about the magazine's fiscal situation, including the actual demographics of its audience, made it impossible for executive board members to resist his claims that much of the NAACP’s membership success was in fact due to the content contained within Crisis—not Johnson’s efforts—for which Du Bois alone was responsible. While this still falls within the realm of conjecture, it does help to account for why decided reform rhetoric absent of any religion was allowed to appear in Crisis during W.E.B. Du Bois’s editorship between 1910 and 1934.

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Wittingly or unwittingly, the NAACP’s interests in offering leadership to African American masses in the South—coupled with Du Bois’s longstanding conception of a utilitarian periodical that would convey scholarly leadership—fueled reform writings in Crisis that offered an agnostic platform for improving African American moral, ethical, and social development. Between November 1910 and August 1934, 2408 articles appeared in The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races. Du Bois’s signature alone was affixed to 635 of these, and some 780 articles were anonymously published; the articles’ style, tone, and content suggest that Du Bois authored most of these writings as well. The remaining articles were published either by NAACP executive board members,

invited contributors,

or other Crisis staff members

that were of Du Bois’s ilk. While these numbers reveal much about Du Bois’s voluminous output as a periodical author and editor, they still do not fully explain how the many reform articles that appeared were partly designed to offer an agnostic platform rivaling the reform programs of African American churches and religious organizations. However, a four-page pamphlet written by Du Bois entitled “A Program for Social Betterment” (published sometime just before 1900) does provide some illumination for how he utilized Crisis for this purpose. In the pamphlet, Du Bois suggested: “The program of a society for social reform therefore must consist of three parts: Study—careful inquiry into the results of sociological research; Knowledge of the work of others—an attempt to profit by the experience of other workers and reformers; Actual Effort—careful tentative endeavor to better social conditions in limited localities and in definitely limited respects.” Quite remarkably, the reform areas that Du Bois listed under his third heading, “Actual Effort,” are nearly an exact subject index for Du Bois’s reform articles appearing in Crisis; more importantly, it bears a strong semblance to the reform activities of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century African American churches. Although Du Bois would probably resist a comparison between the reform areas that his pamphlet outlined and the traditional reform programs of African American churches, it is difficult to ignore their similarities. Du Bois’s list, which is nearly an exact replica of the subject index for reform articles appearing in Crisis, was as follows: “Amusement reform—to provide simple, healthful recreation. Savings bank—to encourage saving. Charity organization—to systematize giving and discover imposters. Child saving—to succor outcast and vagrant children. Prevention of consumption—to stop the ravages of this disease. Health

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and hygiene—to promote hygienic habits. Schools—to secure more schools, better attendance, night schools. Woman’s Exchange—to facilitate the buying of home-made products. Insurance—to guard against fraud and gambling. Liquor Question—to lessen the influence of the saloon. Reform-school—to provide a place of education for juvenile offenders. Suppression of crime—to study the cause of crime. Prostitution—to protect girls and reclaim the fallen. Sanitation—to improve sections, yards, closets, and household methods. Cooperative business—to establish cooperative stores. &c. Housing—to improve Negro homes. Medical dispensary—to provide food and medicine for the sick. Ice & Flower Mission—to provide ice for poor & encourage flower-raising. Social Settlkement—place a center of culture and civilization in the slums. Cooking reform—to prevent waste of nutriment and money. Anti-Credit Crusade—to encourage cash buying. Migration—to induce people to return to farms. Consumer's league—to increase cooperation in buying. Statistical bureau—to collect reliable information about Negroes. Building & Loan Associations—for cooperative house-building. Tracts—on all subjects for chance reading. Dress-reform—for warm, simple clothing and prevention of extravagance. Maternity refuges—for women in confinement. Mothers meetings—to teach and meet the mothers of homes. Mending Bureau—to teach patching and plain sewing. Day-nurseries—a place to leave children in the day time while the mother is at work. Circulating libraries—for school and reading circles.”!7 And Benjamin Mays’s catalogue of the traditional reform programs of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century African American churches in The Negro’s Church (1933) provides a useful list for comparing these activities with what appeared within Crisis: “Preaching, Union services and interchurch cooperations, Missionary societies, Clubs (social, educational, financial), Sunday church school, Poor relief, Revivals, Choirs, Young people’s work, Prayer meeting, Recreational work, Pastors’ aid boards, Gymnasium classes, Church papers, Extension work in missions, Feeding the unemployed, Junior churches, Daily vacation Bible school, Benevolent societies, Clinic (free), Motion pictures, Cooperate-Y.W. and Y.M.C.A, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Kindergarten, Nurseries (day), Auto buses, Employment agency, Visiting nurse, Music classes, Brotherhood, Branch library of city, Homes for girls and old people, Public forums, Mid-week adult Bible class, Orphans’ home, Health classes, Dramatic club, Lectures and Mission-study class.”'8

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While Du Bois’s reform subjects appearing in Crisis eschewed the more “other worldly” and dogmatic activities of black churches, the remaining reform activities of black churches are not very much unlike what Du Bois proposed in his pamphlet and the subjects that would eventually be discussed in Crisis. Du Bois’s Crisis writings and those of professors, authors, lawyers, scientists, reformers, professors, and other educated persons situated the more commonplace African American church reform activities within sociological, cultured, and decidedly academic contexts that typical late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century African American church leaders would not have had much familiarity with. And this brand of reform writing hearkened all the way back to Du Bois’s teenage Great Barrington writings and Crummell’s original plans to communicate educated leadership in reform matters through the Occasional Papers. In addition to the NAACP’s executive leadership, leading scientists who were affiliated with America’s most prestigious universities and trained social workers “who knew the Negro problem”—and were either disassociated with or hostile to African American religious practices—played crucial roles in shaping the organization’s and magazine’s seminal reform interests in the African American community.!° Among them were Livingston Farand, an anthropologist from Columbia University; Burt G. Wilder, a neurologist and zoologist from Cornell University; another Columbia professor, Edwin R.A. Seligman; Franz Boaz, an internationally renowned anthropologist whose work was applied by African American intellectuals such as Zora Neale Hurston to African American culture; Henry Moskowitz, a social worker among New York immigrants; Mary White Ovington, a wealthy and educated social worker and reformer who published several important works about African American social issues (she was also the most active NAACP executive member in reform efforts within the African American community during the period Du Bois edited and wrote for Crisis); and the distinguished social philosopher, educator, and agnostic John Dewey. The foundational contributions of these reformers and scientists to the association and magazine would primarily come in the form of presentations offering “scientific refutation of erroneous popular beliefs about the Negro.””° These persons would play a critical role in dispelling the perceived powerlessness of socially scientific reform efforts to overcome the deep-rooted social depravity found in early-twentieth-century African American communities. One such contributor was the prominent agnostic

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lawyer Clarence Darrow, who would be invited to appear in Crisis in 1931 but with resounding controversy. Prior to Darrow’s appearance, there was only one other appearance of Du Bois’s open criticisms of African American religious organizations and their leaders. In May 1912, Du Bois published a church number for the twentieth issue in which he asked “four leading churchmen representing the four largest denominations among colored people to give the Crisis a statement of the present condition of these churches.”2! After receiving representative articles from all but the A.M.E. Zion church, Du Bois closed the issue with an article that reflected much of what he had already written about African American churches and its reform programs. Not mincing words, he contended that African American clergymen were “ill-trained,” “immoral,” and too often “blaming educated people” for not taking heed

to “empty sermons.” Du Bois also made suggestions for how the four Negro churches might incorporate a more efficient program for reforming Negroes: “Let us trust that these great churches in conference remembering the leaders of the past and conscious of all that the church has done well, will set their faces to these deeds: 1. Electing as bishops and leaders only men of honesty, probity and efficiency and rejecting the noisy and unclean leaders of the thoughtless mob. 2. Weeding out the ministry so as to increase the clean apostles of service and sacrifice. 3. Initiating positive programs of education and social uplift and discouraging extravagant building and mere ostentation. 4. Bending every effort to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and ancient and outworn creeds.”?? Du Bois’s article caused several problems for the NAACP. In the June 4, 1912,

board

minutes,

Alexander

Walters,

a bishop

in the

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and NAACP board member, expressed his dissatisfaction with the statement concerning the A.M.E. Zion church given in that inflammatory May issue of the Crisis. (This also led to Walters’s decision to maintain relations with Booker T. Washington who was extremely forbearing of African American religion and churches.)?* Although Du Bois’s criticism of the A.M.E. Zion church's failure to submit an article was what mainly irritated Walters, the board member undoubtedly shared the sentiment of those who felt that Crisis should not express such damaging remarks about African American religion and its churches. In addition

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to Walter's reprimand, the NAACP’s Baltimore branch reported to national headquarters that Crisis had caused much trouble and urged the association to court, rather than criticize, the African American church and ministry. Even a white Boston NAACP member asked Joel Spingarn to do his best to rid Crisis of disparaging remarks.?4 In spite of the controversy surrounding his article, Du Bois’s Crisis remained impenitent and made no public retractions. (But he did so largely within the doors of the organization and rarely offered overt criticism of African American religious organizations again with the pages of Crisis.) Crisis would not again have Negro churches as the magazine's main subject until Du Bois was nearing the end of his Crisis editorship in 1931. Then, Du Bois staged a debate between Clarence Darrow and an African American clergyman, and the effects of this debate were far more disastrous than the 1912 episode. In “Religion of the Negro,” Darrow commented: “Every observer of the Negro knows that he spends too much of his meager income on the church. In our big cities they are trying to imitate the whites [. . .] While tens of thousands are standing in bread lines, the contributions to extravagant churches go on. It is not easy for an outsider to see how any luxury or extravagance is needed for the worship of God |. . .] Before he robs himself to increase the extravagance of the church, he should ask the simple question: What has his God and the church done for him?”?5 Du Bois suggested as much in two smaller articles appearing in that issue, titled “The Editor Adds” and “Religion.” African American newspapers throughout the country reacted with extreme dissatisfaction toward Du Bois, Darrow, and the NAACP for what was perceived as irreverence toward Negro churches and ministers.2° Darrow, an NAACP lawyer who had previously spoken in Negro churches because of his participation in significant litigation on behalf of Negro rights, was already beginning to be prevented from doing the same amount of advocacy work in African American sectors once his agnostic views were becoming apparent to southern African Americans. Du Bois expressed his support for Darrow in an uncharac-

teristically lengthy 1928 apology titled “Darrow”: “Nothing more unfortunate has happened in the recent history of the Negro race than the attitude of black ministers in Washington toward Clarence Darrow. Here is a man whose voice has been raised for righteousness in the face of flattery, money and fame. He has dared to use his unique genius to defend the rights of poor white labor and disfranchised Negroes. If religion and Christianity mean anything, they mean deeds

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and not the mere words and yet the black ministers of Washington are apparently more interested in the mouthing of creeds and the orthodoxy of men’s beliefs than in the Christianity and unselfishness of their deeds. There is not a Negro church in the United States that ought not to throw wide its doors to Clarence Darrow and beg him to come in. He will criticize those churches and they ought to be criticized. He says frankly and openly what their own members say, namely: They are spending too much money for church edifices and not enough for the social uplift which Christianity stands for if it stands for anything |. . .| It will be a sad time and the beginning ofits doom when the black church turns from its highest mission and goes to burning witches."?7 Though Du Bois posits that African American ministers were largely resorting to ad hominem justifications for dismissing Darrow, his letter inviting Darrow to contribute the 1931 article suggests that he was doing as much toward the ministers. Du Bois explained to Darrow, “I suppose you might as well go at the question of religion. I imagine that the preachers do nothing of any consequence for our organization and probably never will. They and their churches are a terrible load on the poor workers. Of course sooner or later the preachers will be shaken off but it is a hard job.”28 And Du Bois’s 1928 defense of Darrow and his subsequent invitation to Darrow to write in the pages of Crisis in 1931 on the question of African American religion might have also helped to hasten Du Bois’s departure from Crisis three years later as much as the NAACP’s efforts to secure more control of the magazine and Du Bois. What Du Bois learned from the 1912 episode and possibly his anticipation of what would happen in the 1931 Darrow episode (though by then he was virtually on his way out as editor) was that effective agnosticism was nonproselytizing agnosticism—especially one that overtly challenged African American religious organizations and its leaders as Du Bois’s did. And this was the core of Du Bois’s reform philosophy during his Crisis tenure, a reform philosophy which always remained diametrically opposed to the reform dogma and activities of African American religion. Whether the NAACP endorsed him or not, its inability to restrict Du Bois’s autonomy would inevitably create the perception that the NAACP’s attitude reflected Du Bois’s reform writings in the Crisis. The Crisis reform writings appearing during Du Bois’s twentyfour-year editorship can be conveniently divided into roughly three eight-year periods: I. November 1910—December 1917; II. January

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1918—December 1924; and III. January 1925—1934. “The Ghetto"—published anonymously in December 1910, but to all appearances is Du Bois‘’s handiwork—was the earliest writing to appear within Crisis calling for specific attention to moral, ethical, and social problems in the African American community. As early as the periodical’s second issue, Du Bois began using the NAACP’s overarching interests in racial discrimination as a partial pretext for addressing moral, ethical, and social problems within the Negro community. “The Ghetto” argues that one significant reason for dismantling segregation is because it hinders the “deportment” of Negroes.*? With this article, Du Bois formally introduces what would become a steady stream of reform discourse in Crisis that would be decidedly irreligious and furtively agnostic during his tenure within the NAACP. In them, it is crucial to highlight that no reform article appearing under the direction of Du Bois ever advocated the benefits of African American churches and religion in improving African American behavior. This was meticulously in keeping with Du Bois’s agnostic philosophy and arguably his clandestine attempt at “shaking off the preachers.”

I. 1910-1917 Again, most ofthe reform writings appearing in Crisis would begin appearing much more frequently in 1917 with the increase of NAACP African American membership and readership in the South. However, prior to this time, reform writing directed toward African Americans still had a place within the magazine.*° In March 1911, Mrs. John Milholland, the wife of a Du Bois sympathizer who helped to found the NAACP and was also a journalist and successful businessman, wrote “Talks About Women.” Mrs. Milholland’s article would be the first invited contribution to address behavior within the African American community. The article encourages its female Negro readers to participate in various kinds of recreation to promote health and fitness. She contributed another article appearing under the same title in April 1911 that advocates courses in domestic science for young women. Du Bois’s first reform article was a May 1911 article entitled “Violations of Property Rights.” The article relies upon statistics and charts to demonstrate that Negroes were resolving the problem of “laziness" by resorting to “thrift.”

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G. S. Dickerman, a Negro teacher, was the first invited contributor to publish more than one reform article in Crisis. His June 1911 contribution, “Vacation Opportunities,” was designed to give colored teachers advice about how they should profitably spend their summers. He asserts: “And vacation has its perils also for the teacher. It is about as bad for the teacher to be left with nothing to do as it is for the pupils [. . .| If he changes from industry to indolence or from the earnest interest of the schoolroom to trifling gossip with vulgar companions and other shallow occupations having no resolute purpose of doing anything useful, he cannot but suffer harm and come to the end

of the summer worse rather than better for what he has been through.” In the July 1912 issue Dickerman also authored “The Faiths of Teachers,” in which he describes four crucial faiths that a teacher must possess: “1. Faith in the pupil’s worth and in the worth of all pupils; 2. Faith in effort—effort for the pupil and by the pupil; 3. Faith in personal example; 4. Faith in the unfoldings of character through processes beyond our knowledge.” It is categorically clear throughout that he did not mean to express faith as in religion. In May 1912, Du Bois wrote an article entitled “Education,” which derides the universal tendency among Negroes to train their children for manual labor alone. In June 1912, he wrote another article with the same title that defends his previous claims. In it, Du Bois offers the following advice: “Educate your children. Give them the broadest and highest education possible; train them to the limit of their ability if you work your hands to the bone in doing it. See that your child gets not the highest task but the task best fitted to his ability whether it be digging dirt or painting landscapes; remembering that our recognition as common folk by the world depends on the number of men of ability we produce not great geniuses but efficient thinkers and doers in all lines. Never forget that ifwe ever compel the world’s respect it will be by virtue of our heads and not our heels.” In the same issue, another article appeared—perhaps written by Du Bois—entitled “Reform in Birmingham.” The article suggests that high crime exists among school-aged children in Birmingham due to inadequate school facilities. Jessie Pauset, Crisis‘s literary editor and an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, published an article in July 1912 entitled, “The Montessori Method—Its Possibilities.” The article addressed Negro children in educational matters. Fauset’s article recommends Montessori education for Negro children: “Most important of all very few of

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these children are persistently naughty. They have no occasion to be. For, as Dr. Montessori says, naughtiness is very often the instinctive effort ofthe child to assert a repressed personality. Since these children’s activities are not repressed but are simply directed into safe channels and there allowed full play there is no need for such assertion. Thus these tiny children acquire a discipline which will be theirs when hard and fast laws and restrictions fail.” Du Bois, in an anonymously published article entitled, “Of Children,” published in October 1912, advises Negro parents how to properly train their children in the social aspects of being black, a theme he returned to in December 1912 in “The Black Mother.” That article urges Negro mothers to pay more attention to the rearing of their own children instead of continuing the tradition of the black mammy by caring for white children. No reform articles appeared within Crisis between January 1913 and February 1915, but in March 1915 a medical doctor named Agnes P. Berry contributed “An Open Window Class,” which describes the success of an Open Window program promoting recreation and proper hygiene among Negro students. Similar to Fauset’s article on Montessori education, Berry implies that such programming would do well if instituted in Negro public schools. In 1915, Du Bois wrote an article entitled “The Immediate Program of the American Negro,” in which he contends, “It is our duty then, not drastically but persistently, to seek out colored children of ability and genius, to open up to them broader, industrial opportunity and above all to find that Talented Tenth and encourage it by the best and most exhaustive training in order to supply the Negro race and the world with leaders, thinkers and artists.” In October 1915, Archibald Grimke, who was also a member of the American Negro Academy, contributed an article entitled “Parents and Children,” in which he urges parents to properly train their children in accord with what would best suit the advancement of the race. In an October 1916 anonymously published article entitled “Discipline,” which bears all the earmarks of Du Bois’s rhetoric, the writer suggests that self-discipline should be emphasized in the training of American Negroes instead of imposed discipline. One of the first articles to appear in 1917 was an article, presumably written by Du Bois, entitled “Gaining Strength in the South.” Not only did the article point out the NAACP’s growing influence in the South at the same time James Weldon Johnson was making tremendous strides in recruiting southern African Americans into the NAACP, but it marks a decided shift in the magazine’s content. In Crisis’s first six

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years, reform articles were published sporadically, but, starting in 1917, these writings appeared more frequently. Mary White Ovington, an NAACP executive board member and social reformer, published “The Master of His Fate” in February 1917. Her article describes the significant strides being made in the Negro community largely because of the community's “growing confidence” in “dignity” and “self worth,” and implies that this sentiment would be the community’s greatest asset in overcoming the impositions of racial discrimination in America. In September 1917, an unknown author noted the success of a Negro parade in “More Suggestions” and asks that American Negroes do more in the sharing and distribution of wealth. Ovington contributed another article in October 1917 entitled “Quitting.” In it, she complains that some Negroes quit jobs secured for them through the assistance of the NAACP. In the final reform article written during this period, Du Bois criticizes in “Hampton” that institution's insistence upon industrial training and—in spite of its claims to be a teacher of character—its refusal “to guide her apter students to their greatest development.”

If. 1918-1925 In 1918 reform writing in Crisis became much more commonplace. In the July issue, Du Bois published “The Common School,” in which he describes an appropriate curriculum for the training of Negro children. In the same issue, three anonymously published articles concentrated upon educational reform within the African American community. In “Philanthropy,” the writer contends that advancement within the race would be contingent upon adequate attention being given to higher education and that all available monies should be used for this purpose. In “Self-Help” the author continues this line of argument suggesting that Negro progress could not be achieved without Negroes themselves investing in education. And “Awake, Put on Thy Strength, O Zion” furthers the call by asking Negroes to support Negro universities. In the same issue, James Dillard, former president of ‘Tulane University and Negro sympathizer, published “Education,” which advocates a two-prong approach to Negro education involving industrial and academic education. In August 1918, an unknown author published “Food,” which describes the necessity of well-prepared foods in promoting Negro

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“health and efficiency.” In the same issue, Arthur B. Spingarn, an NAACP board member, published “The Health and Morals of Colored Troops.” A long-term promoter of health and moral reform in Negro communities, Spingarn detailed those steps being taken to teach proper health and morality among Negro troops. In October 1918, an unknown author indicts Negroes in “The Slaughter of the Innocents” for irresponsible behavior in safely preparing for childbirth. The writer recommends adequate “outdoor life” and “pure foods.” In the same issue, an article appeared entitled “Save.” It literally commanded Negroes to save and invest their monies wisely. In November 1918, Du Bois urges Negroes to elect sympathetic officials in “The Colored Voter.” Du Bois was the apparent author of the January 1919 “Consumers’ Co/Operation,” which provides guidance on how a successful cooperative might be managed among Negroes. In February 1919, Mary

White Ovington contributed “Reconstruction and the Negro,” which proposes a reform program among Negroes that would include the elimination of illiteracy, housing reform, and sanitation reform, among other things. In July 1919, Du Bois counsels Negroes in “Reconstruction” to work for integrated public schools, business cooperatives, and intelligent use of the ballot. In February 1920, he also explains in “Cooperation” why many cooperatives fail, but why over time these programs can succeed. In “Crime,” he describes why crimes plague the Negro community and how to change this behavior. In March 1920, an unknown author, presumably Du Bois, published “Just Like Folks,” which criticizes the unjust criticism directed toward

one another in the Negro community, suggesting that this criticism stemmed from a lack of self-esteem. In July 1920, Du Bois applauds in “Two Methods” two separate strategies for instilling race pride in Negro children. Appearing in the same issue was “Weaknesses of the Negro College” by David G. Houston. It argues that Negro colleges concentrated entirely too much upon preaching at the expense of teaching. In “Thrift,” written in January 1921, Du Bois invokes Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard to encourage Negroes to learn to save and assume control over a larger share of capital. That May, Du Bois urges Negroes in “Drive” to support practical efforts to improve the Negro community instead of wild and foolish schemes. In February 1922,

John Hope, president of Atlanta University, Edward Morris, and C. H. Phillips cowrote a letter entitled “Our Greatest Fault.” It argues that

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“pretending,”

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“lack of initiative,”

and being “thin-skinned”

is the

greatest fault among Negroes. That October, Du Bois wrote “The Children,” which instructs parents to be firm in their discipline of children in order to better fit them for life. In October, he also wrote “Education,” which berates Negro parents for not taking active interest in their children’s education. Du Bois also wrote three other articles in this same issue entitled, “Marriage,” “Birth,” and “Childhood.” They counsel, respectively, compromise in Negro marriages, birth control to decrease the high rates of infant mortality, and conversation between parents and children to promote understanding. In December 1922, Du Bois suggests in “Steps Toward the Negro Theatre” that Negro theatres must relinquish commercialism and follow the example of the Howard University players. The Negro poet Countee Cullen wrote “The League of Youth” in August 1923. The article suggests that a new Negro movement was afoot among the Negro youth, which has less dependency upon religion and more upon education for Negro betterment. In March 1924, famed Negro sociologist E. Franklin Frazier criticizes those Negroes who used lies and deceit in their relations with whites in “The Negro and Non-Resistance.” He argues that this method denies a Negro a personality that is uniquely his own. Franklin also wrote “Social Work in Race Relations” in the April 1924 issue, which suggests that social work instead of industrial training or the church would be the best means for improving the Negro response to discrimination. William Albert Robinson also contributed an article to the same issue criticizing the attitudes of Negroes for degrading themselves by patronizing white physicians and businesses instead of their own. In July 1924, Du Bois explicitly declares that without the NAACP’s leadership Negro unity would be impossible to achieve. The following month, Albert Beckham published “Applied Eugenics,” arguing that selective mating will approve the mental, moral, and physical development of Negroes. In October 1924, Du Bois published an interview he had with a nine-year-old Negro child, in which he points out that children can teach Negro parents about child rearing. Gerald Norman, an invited contributor, applauds in “The American Tennis Association” the efforts to spread lawn tennis among Negro community members and its contribution to healthy amusement. In June 1925, Professor William Stuart Nelson wrote in “Close Ranks” that African Americans must eliminate divisiveness within the race, and, in the same issue, Horace

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(hl

Bond argues in “Temperance” that negative behavioral patterns among Negroes should be properly described to the constituency of American Negroes and this must be taken into consideration in any reform discussion.

Ill. 1926-1934

In July 1926, Du Bois advocates in “Foreign Languages” the need for foreign languages to be introduced into Negro curricula; this allows for a much more holistic training for Negro children. In October 1926, in an article entitled “Crisis Children,” Du Bois instructs Negro parents on how to raise “quality” children. In the same month, W. C. Matney, an invited contributor, suggests in “Teaching Business Methods” that the cooperative business venture at Bluefield Institute was a useful way to teach business principles to Negroes. Du Bois argues in an April 1927 article entitled “Boys and Girls”: “Do not so easily let the boy drop out and go to work. Do not reserve all the strings of discipline and guidance for the girls. Do not get the silly idea that girls must be coddled but that boys would best fend for themselves.” In “Standard Life” written in August 1927, Du Bois asks Negroes to support a life insurance company that was recently purchased by blacks. In May 1928, Harry Pace advises the race in “How Much Insurance Should You Have?” about the right type and extent of insurance. In “Our Economic Future,” Du Bois discusses the dismal picture of Negro economics and urges Negroes to manufacture goods and participate in consumer cooperatives. William Occomy presented a plan in a June 1928 article entitled “The Business Prizes” that would help stimulate interests in business enterprises among Negroes. In April 1929, Du Bois was the probable author of two anonymously published writings entitled “Our Monthly Sermon” and “I Have Just Read.” In the first piece, Du Bois encourages Negro readers to purchase more books to support the new literary movement, and in the second piece he praises Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bun and Du Bose Heyward’s Mamba’s Daughter for not depicting much of the debauchery found commonly in Harlem Renaissance literature. (Du Bois frequently took issue with Alaine Locke and other Harlem Renaissance writers for depicting the “debauched tenth” of the race.) James Weldon Johnson also discusses this problem in “Negro Authors and White Publishers” in July 1929. He suggests that there would be a

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market for Negro authors who did not degrade Negro life in their fiction. In November 1929, Du Bois argues in “Business as Public Service” that, in the absence of enormous wealth, Negro businesses should create a cooperative enterprise designed to provide services for economic and social gain. At the start of Du Bois’s final four years as editor, W. C. Matney contributed two articles in a series entitled “Exploitation or Co-Operation.” The January and February 1930 articles offer solutions to the race's trouble in economics by suggesting cooperative business. In January 1930, Du Bois gives his recommendations about interracial marriage in “About Marrying.” A February 1930 article, “A New Chicago Hospital,” written by an unidentified author, endorses a new interracial hospital that relies upon research and healing. In March 1930, Du Bois continues to recommend Negro cooperatives for the economic crisis facing the community in “Our Economic Peril.” In April 1930, Du Bois praises the Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation for adhering to Christian principles in “The Forward Looking South.” In a July 1930 article entitled “A Southern Seaside Resort,” an unnamed author describes a Negro resort area that combined sea bathing with religious and educational development. In “Troubadour,” Virginia Houston points out the shortcomings of ghetto blacks as opposed to their more rural black counterparts. In “The Negro College Student” written by Professor Arthur Davis in August 1930, the article relates the increasing difficulties in educating lazy Negro college students. In “Economic Education,” H. J. Pinckett argues in the September 1930 issue that practical instruction in managing economic resources must be taught to Negroes. In October 1930, Du Bois discusses in “The City Child” how reforming these children through education would make them less disrespectful and criminal, and in the same issue he provides remedies for unemployed Negroes in “Employment.” In “Classic Music and Virtuous Ladies,” published in January 1931 by Benjamin Stolberg, the writer advises Negroes to embrace classical music for its refining qualities. In that year’s July issue, Du Bois gives suggestions about how Negroes might be able to survive economically in “The Negro’s Industrial Plight.” The pioneering scholar of African American life, Carter G. Woodson, wrote another article entitled “The Miseducation of the Negro” in August 1931. The article discusses how the Negroes’ present educational system failed to prepare them for success, and what Negroes must do about remedying this educational system. In September 1931, Laura Nichols contributed an article that

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glowingly supported a preacher's lecture on adultery in the Negro urban community. In November 1931, Du Bois wrote in “Buying and Selling” that Negro consumers could organize themselves to influence capitalism. In February 1932, Du Bois presented several letters from various city officials about Negro unemployment and concluded them with the recommendation for all Negroes to pull themselves up by their own “bootstraps.” In February 1932, Andrew G. Paschal suggests in “Negro Youth and the Lost Ideals” that urbanized Negroes lost many important values from the previous generation. In the same issue, William Robinson’s “Discipline in Negro Schools” discusses the lack of discipline being enforced in Negro boarding schools. In “Christmas Festivities,” written in February 1932, Du Bois derides the social activities of Negro fraternities and sororities by suggesting that they lent themselves to snobbish behavior. In September 1932, Du Bois advises southern Negroes in “Young Voters” to take a more active role in southern politics. In “Wilberforce,” appearing in September 1932, Du Bois offers the Negro college advice on how to properly enhance its program for the training of American Negroes. In October 1932, Grace Abbot from the U.S. Department of Labor advises Negro mothers on the proper ways to decrease infant mortality and delinquency among Negro children in “A Message to Colored Mothers.” J. B. Watson, a Negro college president, discusses the difficulties of educating Negro students in “A Tired

College President.” In a December 1932 article, entitled “For Unto Us a Child Is Born,” Du Bois discusses the responsibilities of child rearing in the Negro community. In a most curious reform article written in January 1933 entitled “Towards a New Racial Philosophy,” Du Bois proposes twelve points that Crisis would be devoted to in what would prove to be his final full year as editor. In this year, there would be a significant increase in Crisis‘s reform writings. Du Bois stated in the article: “[Crisis] proposes during 1933 to discuss the present Negro problems from 12 points of

view [.. .] 1. Birth 2. Health 3. The Home 4. Occupations 5. Education 6. Income 7. Discrimination 8. Government and Law 9. Race Pride 10. Religion 11. Social Contacts 12. Recreation.” In January 1933, John Cornwall contributed an article entitled “Problems of Birth” where he discusses the things that Negro couples should consider when marrying and thinking of starting a family. In February 1933, an anonymous writer discusses in “The Health of Black Folk”

the moral problems leading to a high mortality rate among African

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Americans. Another anonymously published article in the same issue entitled “Can a Colored Women be a Physician?” discusses Virginia Alexander's socialized medicine plans for the Negro community. Again, in February 1933, Daisey Lampkin and Roscoe Dunjee cowrote “The NAACP at Work,” which describes the NAACP’s efforts to educate the Negro public about voting. Du Bois’s April 1933 article entitled “The Right To Work” continues to encourage Negroes to invest in cooperative business. Jonathon Brooks suggests in “The White Prophet,” which appeared in May 1933, that African Americans should begin practicing principles such as love, race pride, and trust. Carlena Alexander discusses in “The Wandering Negro Boys” her encounter with two vagrant Negro youths, and she offers advice for rural southerners entering into northern urban communities. In a June 1933 article, Du Bois instructs Negro voters in “The Strategy of the Negro Vote.” In July 1933, Du Bois discusses the necessity of reforming Negro criminality and pauperism in “Our Class Struggle.” In the same issue, Du Bois suggests in “Our Music” that the importance of supporting Negro music is in extolling truth and beauty rather than primitivism and religion. And, in August 1933, Du Bois advises Negro colleges in “The Negro College” to concern themselves with providing a holistic educational program addressing all of life’s necessities. Another August 1933 article, “The Thoughts of a Colored Girl,” written by Margaret Cunningham, provides advice about marriage and childbirth. In “What Shall I Do?,” which appeared in August 1933, Du Bois responds to a question by a Negro interrogator with an outline of his reform philosophy for the Negro situation. Also in August 1933, Du Bois continued his prolific reform writing in “Organization,” which laments the Negro’s inability to organize properly. In the same issue, George McCray argues in “Education” that Negroes needed to develop an adequate educational program to address their inferiority complexes toward one another. In September 1933, Du Bois continues McCray’s line of argumentation in “On Being Ashamed of Oneself: An Essay on Race Pride.” McCray then wrote a second article in October 1933 entitled “Race Pride.” It argues that Negroes should instill into one another confidence in their respective abilities. In “The Church and Religion,” an October 1933 article, Du Bois gives his clearest statement about his conception of morality and ethics: “Critics of religion and of the church must distinguish rather carefully between the two. Religion is a theory of the ultimate constitution of the world, more particularly in its moral aspects and as ap-

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plied to questions of individual right and wrong. The church on the other hand is the organization which sets down and from time to time suggests the exact religious belief which is prevalent. It also carries out celebrations and methods of worship. Particularly, it collects and spends money for its own organization and for certain religious and moral and ethical objects.” In November 1933, Du Bois asks American Negroes to join in PanAfrican economic cooperation in “Pan-Africa and New Racial Philosophy.” In February 1934, Edward Farrison wrote “Negro Scholarship,” in which he discusses the shortcomings of Negro academics and their work, and, in March 1934, Du Bois suggests in “Separation and SelfRespect” that Negroes might attain a significant measure of selfrespect in spite of segregation. Du Bois also wrote another March 1934 article entitled “Subsistence Homestead,” in which he encourages Negroes to grow their own food. Du Bois wrote five editorials entitled “Segregation in the North,” “No Segregation,” “Objects of Segregation,” “Boycott,” and “Integration” in the April 1934 issue. He concedes that, in the face of American racism, segregation may be necessary to preserve Negro self-respect, and he encourages Negroes to work together socially and economically. He suggests the same in “Segregation” written in May 1934. In June 1934, Margaret Sanger discusses the importance of birth control in “The Case for Birth Control.” In “Postscript,” which appeared in June 1934, Du Bois suggests that it was better to accept segregation with one’s integrity intact rather than losing one’s integrity in a manner similar to Washingtonian philosophy. This was Du Bois’s last reform writing to appear in Crisis. His last article would be his published letter of resignation appearing in August 1934. And, in what appears to be the last reform article appearing during Du Bois’s editorship of Crisis, Langston Hughes denounces Negro colleges in his August 1934 article, “Cowards From the Colleges,” for producing sycophants because of its policies. “eu

NOTES 1. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “Careers Open to College-Bred Negroes,” Two Addresses Delivered by Alumni of Fisk University, in connection with the Annual Exercises of their Alma Mater, June 1898 (Nashville: Fisk University,

1898).

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2. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “The Problem of Amusement,” Southern Workman 28 (January 1899): 20. 3. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “Talented Tenth,” in The Negro Problem: A Series of Representative Articles by Representative American Negroes ToDay (New York: James Pott & Co., 1903), 54. 4. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, “The Minister,” Hampton Negro Conference, Annual Report, in Hampton Bulletin 2 (September 1906): 91-92. 5. Du Bois, “The Future of the Negro Race in America,” in Writings by Du Bois in Periodicals Edited by Others, 187. 6. Du Bois, “The Negro Church,” The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races 4 (May 1912): 24. 7. Du Bois, “The Revelation of St. Orgne the Damned,” Fisk News 11 (November—December 1938): 7. 8. Du Bois, “The Future of Wilberforce University,” The Journal of Negro Education 9 (October 1940): 553. 9. Du Bois, “As the Crow Flies,” Amsterdam News (October 23, 1943): 17. 10. Du Bois, “The Negro Church,” in Atlanta University Publications (New York: Arno Press, 1968), 207-208. 11. Kellogg, NAACP, 150. 12.

Kellogg, NAACP,

119.

13. Kellogg, NAACP, 131. 14. Kellogg, NAACP, 133. 15. Kellogg, NAACP,

134-35.

16. Kellogg, NAACP, 137. 17. Du Bois, “A Program for Social Betterment,” in Pamphlets and Leaflets by W.E.B. Du Bois, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, 10-11 (White Plains, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson, 1986). 18. Benjamin Mays, The Negro’s Church (New York: Russell & Russell, 1933), 122-23.

19. Du Bois, Autobiography, 254. 20. Kellogg, NAACP, 58. 21. Du Bois, Crisis 4 (May 1912): 24-25. 22. Du Bois, “The Negro Church,” in Writings in Periodicals Edited by W.E.B. Du Bois: Selections from The Crisis, ed. and comp. Herbert Aptheker, vol. 1, 35 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus-Thomson, 1983).

23. “June 4, 1912 Minutes,” Container A-1, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

24. Kellogg, NAACP, 99.

25. Clarence Darrow, “Religion of the Negro,” Crisis 38 (June 1931): 190. 26. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., contains a substantial number of African American newspaper clippings, which decried the position of Darrow and Du Bois.

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27. Du Bois, “Darrow,” Crisis 35 (June 1928): 23. 28. Du Bois, “To Clarence Darrow,” 8 October 1929 in The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois: (Selections, 1877-1934), 408. 29. Du Bois, “The Ghetto,” Crisis 1 (Dec. 1910): 20. 30. All remaining citations and summaries are taken from The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races. The summaries will generally refer to African Americans as “Negroes” to remain in keeping with the period.

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Epilogue “The Great Ghandi,”

“The Prophet of Communism,” and Agnostic Legacy

Though historians and literary theorists alike have pointed out the sheer poignancy and profundity of Du Bois’s passing occurring in Accra, Ghana on August 27, 1963—the eve prior to the Martin Luther King Jr.-led March on Washington for civil rights—not many have offered commentary about those criticisms Du Bois leveled toward King and the civil rights movement in light of Du Bois’s then deeply ensconced agnosticism. In a February 11, 1957 article titled “Will the Great Ghandi Live Again?” appearing in the National Guardian, Du Bois mockingly reproves the effort of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, implying that it lacked sustainability and “moral courage.” Two years later, Du Bois does much the same in “Crusader Without Violence,” dated November 9, 1959 and also appearing in the National Guardian. (Even before King’s participation within the movement, he decried the possibility of such a program in a March 13, 1943 article appearing within the Amsterdam News: “A proposal has been made that American negroes consider launching a broad national program based on non-violent, civil disobedience and no-cooperation, modeled along the lines of Gandhi. I seriously doubt if this is a wise proposal.”) To be sure, Du Bois, who would spend nearly the last two decades of his life as a Communist sympathizer and would make formal application to the Communist Party USA on October 1, 1961, was also

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radically disenchanted with the lack of attention paid by the movement to communism’s core economic aims. David Levering Lewis explains Du Bois’s concerns as follows: “But nonviolent passive resistance devoid of an economic agenda increasingly disappointed Du

Bois, and he finally decided in late 1959 that King was not Ghandi."! Yet, while Du Bois’s concerns about the absence of an economic program in King’s civil rights agenda is worth pointing out (though Du Bois would have appreciated King’s eventual turning toward programmatic economic ideals shortly before his assassination in 1968), the inclusion of organized religion and Christian ideology as part of the civil rights movement's nucleus was equally disturbing to Du Bois’s communist and agnostic sensibilities. Whether King’s success in the movement reminded Du Bois about his failed attempt—at least insofar as securing a similar African American following—to implement a stripped-down and utilitarian version of something resembling Christianity in his leadership of various campaigns or not, it is not reckless to consider that Du Bois remained unwilling to adulate organized religion’s role (even if only in the personage of Reverend King) in leading the largest gathering of the national African American community to that date. And—make no mistake—Du Bois’s failure to openly address such a prominent area of concern for communists and agnostics alike was largely a result of King’s immense popularity with a wide cross-section of African Americans that ultimately hit its crescendo at the march’s conclusion with King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Nevertheless, Du Bois’s demise on the eve prior to the 1963 March on Washington represented much more than the passing of the baton to the next generation of African American leadership. In many ways it represented the national African American community's return to its religious leadership—a leadership Du Bois had seemingly fought his entire life to supplant and replace. And the symbolism ofthis return to its religious leadership (if only during King’s brief life) extends much further when one considers Du Bois alongside of King. Whereas Du Bois’s appearance as a national African American leader came largely as a result of his being the first African American Ph.D. recipient from Harvard University, King’s mantle of leadership appears to have been the long-awaited manifestation of Alexander Crummell’s ambition—an intelligent African American church leader possessing verifiable morality, ethics, and, with King’s receipt of the Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University, an academically respectable degree. This ambition—be-

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coming the incarnate ideal of Crummell’s desire for moral, ethical and intellectual leadership—was probably both Du Bois’s and Crummell’s euphoric intention when Du Bois first joined the American Negro Academy in 1897. But needless to say, Du Bois’s growing disdain for organized religion coupled with the death of Crummell not one year after the Academy’s inception permanently quelled such hope for Du Bois and Crummell. Here one has to pause and wonder what might have happened if Du Bois’s youthful idealism about the possibilities of a practical and intelligent Christian orthodoxy had been able to submit under Crummell’s tutelage beyond a year’s time and beyond Du Bois’s romantic and somewhat hollow rendering of Crummell within the Souls of Black Folk. For if Du Bois had indeed “bowed before this man [Crummell] as one bows before the prophets of the world,” Crummell would have surely forewarned him against spending nearly all of his life denouncing African American religious dogma so severely, which was certainly the reason why Du Bois never rose to King-like stature, at least in the eyes of the domestic African American masses.” In a rare commendation of the possibilities of African American religion, Du Bois offers an almost prophetic pronouncement about the coming of someone like King where he actually suggested that a Ghandi-like figure might secure a place as an African American religious leader worth following: “Our religion with all of its dogma, demagoguery and showmanship can be a center to teach character, right conduct and sacrifice. Therein lies a career for a Negro Ghandi and a host ofearnest followers.”3 In view of such reasons, it is not at all difficult to view Du Bois’s reticence to applaud the youthful King’s successful leadership within the movement as a conscious-panged, guilt-ridden reminder of what role he might have played in the national African American community had he bore both the cross and the gospel that Crummell passed on to him.

The latter suggestion, particularly regarding its contradistinction to King, is worth bearing out as well. In arguing against a rather firmly established historical assessment that Du Bois was clearly agnostic, Edward Blum’s W.E.B. Du Bois: American Prophet rightly shines light upon Du Bois’s lifelong use of Old Testament and New Testament biblical scripture in essays, articles, speeches, and books, as well as a described

“faith demonstrated

in deeds.”4 Yet, when one considers

King’s lifelong (albeit only thirty-nine years) use of the same biblical scriptures and equally important deeds on behalf of African Americans,

i352

Epilogue

one arrives at a largely patent conclusion that Blum cannot escape: King’s reliance upon the central and sacred text of Christianity was manifest in both words and deeds that were largely directed toward and held in common with other participants within an established communal African American religious orthodoxy, and Du Bois’s deeds were not. The deeds and historic events of Du Bois’s life were self-directed without the dictates of an invariably fixed religious community of any kind. It is possible to argue that the American Negro Academy, the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, the Circle for Negro Relief, the Communist Party USA, and a host of other organizations reflected the kinds of communities that Du Bois’s participation within changed depending upon his present interests; in the end, however, this would still belie an argument that posits that Du Bois possessed a religious belief in a fixed, spiritual deity, person, or movement of any sorts. What fixed, spiritual deity aside from the one described in Thomas Paine’s circa 1795 Age of Reason never ordained any form of religious orthodoxy or—in Du Bois‘s case—possessed no more than one follower? Thomas Paine’s deity at the least had one other communicant in Thomas Jefferson, and to argue that Du Bois lived out religion dutifully without adhering to any religious creed, orthodoxy, or overt community would not only be a first, it well-nigh borders upon granting him Messianic qualities. Such an argument is roundly unfair to Du Bois, who called no men to himself or a religion, but called all men to science (social science), for it contained what could be known, observed, and used for the benefit of all men, particularly African Americans. Du Bois‘s deeds and participation within varied historic events over the duration of his ninety-three years fit those of an agnostic and scientist, offering commitment to only that which can be verified through fact and reason. This is how he would eventually find himself amember of the Communist Party. To ascribe any form of religious or spiritual orthodoxy to Du Bois would be to construct an altogether novel religious tradition starting with Du Bois that contained no other participant except its progenitor. Greater still, the lasting significance of King’s affiliation and Du Bois’s nonaffiliation with religious orthodoxy lies within the very domestic national African American community that both men felt called to lead. Without question (though both possessed international admirers from various racial and ethnic groups), Du Bois pales woefully in comparison with King as a recognized leader of the do-

Agnostic Legacy

133

mestic national African American community. Reminiscent of those rather “strange” and “very religious settlers” that moved into Du Bois’s idyllic Great Barrington surroundings when he was a lad, the domestic national African American community has historically avowed allegiance to its religious organizations, namely the African American church and its leaders, and disavowed allegiance to organizations and leaders whose doctrines excluded religious orthodoxy. And such a dynamic describes the inevitable hitch in assessing the religious Christian Martin Luther King alongside of the irreligious agnostic Du Bois. Contrary to the view that Du Bois’s commitment to communism was the last albatross removed from the neck of academics seeking to secure Du Bois a more reverential position among the wider domestic African American community—like the status he holds in PanAfricanist, educated, and primarily elitist circles—in reality, the last albatross has been and continues to be Du Bois’s agnosticism and hostility to African American religious orthodoxy. Even so, within Du Bois’s parting Communist beliefs possibly lies the starting place from where scholars may be finally able to come to terms with his agnosticism. Unlike the programmatic ideals contained within the many other organizations Du Bois joined over his lifetime, the Communist Party USA possessed a platform that openly trumpeted the absence of God. This finally allowed Du Bois to publicly avow what he could never have openly declared within any other organization as an agnostic: A social movement containing no unknowable God. And while Du Bois certainly did not possess the vigor to publicly trumpet the Party's virtue that it adhered to no dogma, during his last days, when Du Bois made formal application to the Communist Party USA, he would nevertheless make his final pronouncements about this quality under the guise of his self-described “Hebrew Prophet of Communism” in his posthumously published 1968 The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois.° Du Bois’s interlude “Communism,” which appears at the conclusion of part 1 of the Autobiography, declares the final philosophy of a man nearing the dawn of his life and wishing to offer his parting legacy. After unequivocally stating, “I believe in communism,” he then goes on to declare, “I resent the charge that communism is a conspiracy: Communists often conspire as do capitalists. But it is false that all Communists are criminals and that communism speaks and exists mainly by means of force and fraud. I shall therefore hereafter help the triumph of communism in every honest way that I can.

134

Epilogue

“Finally, Du Bois concludes the interlude thusly: “Who now am I to have come to these conclusions? And of what if any significance are my deductions? What has been my life and work and of what meaning to mankind? The final answer to these questions, time and posterity must make. But perhaps it is my duty to contribute whatever enlightenment I can. This is the excuse for this writing which I call a Soliloquy.”° To be sure, Du Bois’s lifelong work and writings resonated with the social aims of the Communist Party well before his 1961 letter of application to the Communist Party USA published in The Worker on November 26, 1961. In it he dutifully records the Party’s ten core principles, which, to Du Bois’s credit, he affirmed in some shape or form throughout his life:

. Public ownership of natural resources and of all capital. . Public control of transportation and communications. . Abolition of poverty and limitation of personal income. . No exploitation oflabor. . Social medicine, with hospitalization and care of the old. . Free education for all. . Training for jobs and jobs for all. . Discipline for growth and reform. . Freedom under law. —Ke DAU CUOUOAN BWNH . No dogmatic religion.

Yet, while all of the published commentary and history on the life of W.E.B. Du Bois has either in sum or in part covered every other item recorded in this published letter, there has not been one single monograph, history, treatise, or work of any sort principally devoted to the final item listed: “No dogmatic religion.” And perhaps of all of the items listed, it was the most consistent principle he adhered to (deliberately or not) from his days in Great Barrington to his final place of rest in Accra, Ghana (and the many days in between as a social scientist). In a chapter preceding the interlude on communism titled “The Soviet Union,” Du Bois offered his final acid criticisms of orthodox religion, specifically religion in Russia; yet the criticisms appear to also carry along with them his universal denouncement of its future efficacy—not only in Russia but throughout the world: I leave one subject to the last, as I leave the Soviet Union—teligion |. . .] none regrets that the Russian Orthodox religion has been dethroned. But

Agnostic Legacy

135

the Russian church remains and other churches still carry on in the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union does not allow any church of any kind to interfere with education and religion is not taught in the public schools. It seems to me that this is the greatest gift of the Russian Revolution to the modern world. Most educated modern men no longer believe in religious dogma. If questioned they will usually resort to doubletalk before admitting the fact. But who today actually believes that this world is ruled and directed by a benevolent person of great power who on humble appeal will change the course of events at our request? Who believes in miracles? Many folk follow religious ceremonies and services; and allow their children to learn fairy tales and so-called religious truth, which in time the children come to recognize as conventional lies told by their teachers for the children’s good. One can hardly exaggerate the moral disaster of this custom. We have to thank the Soviet Union for the courage to stop it.”

And perhaps such an unambiguous denouncement appearing in Du Bois’s last testament—like his many previous ones—about the role of orthodox religion within any country, race, or social group makes it well-nigh impossible for scholars (and still more difficult for religious African American community members) to begin to come to terms with Du Bois’s agnostic legacy. Consequentially, there has been a compromise of sorts, an agreement that both academicians and religious African American community members concerned with religion may discuss everything concerning Du Bois—except his religion or his absence of religion in the form of agnosticism. Phil Zuckerman’s edited work Du Bois on Religion (2000), which is the first booklength work to make a preliminary attempt to discuss Du Bois’s views on religion—Blum’s American Prophet is the second—discovered as much: “To be sure, Du Bois was often more skeptical of religion than sympathetic, and his reputation as a harsh critic above all else runs deep. For instance, when I mentioned this book project to a highly respected professor (who wishes to remain anonymous), his immediate reaction was: ‘Du Bois on religion? Why, that’s like doing Hitler on democracy.“8 However, George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (1997) thoughtfully articulates still another reason there has been such a dearth of Du Bois scholarship on this resounding dimension of Du Bois’s life and work. Marsden suggests, “Ever since African Americans began to be permitted to play a role in mainstream academic life, they were aiso sent the clear message that they must conform to the standards of the mainstream academy concerning religion

136

Epilogue

[. . .] they were not encouraged to think about the implications of their religious beliefs for their intellectual life, unless they were studying in divinity schools.” Marsden speaks to those strong reservations that scholars—African American scholars in particular—have about pursuing religious or irreligious subjects in the academy as a matter of scholarly discourse. As a result, members of varying religious communities suffer from a lack of exposure to significant—and often unheard of—elements of African American communal history, which sometimes link their aims, views, and purposes when division is usually the perception; the African American community suffers from an absence of distinctly organic scholarship about African Americans that incorporates—not censors—much of its historic religious sentiment even while African American studies scholars continue to seek respect for their research programs within the academy; and, finally, the wider academic community suffers from an inadequate historical conception of intellectual formation in the African American community, which in many ways strongly resembles the earlier broader American intellectual history with respect to religion, reform, and social utility beginning with the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Perhaps giving thoughtful consideration to the religious or irreligious views of African American stalwarts such as Du Bois, Maria Stewart, Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, Charles Chesnutt, Booker T. Washington, Mary Bethune-Cookman, and others alongside early American

stalwarts

like

Benjamin

Franklin,

Thomas

Paine,

Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Susanne Rowson, Harriett Beecher Stowe, and others might possibly yield an analogous—and substantively richer—African American intellectual trajectory? While W.E.B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism (1868-1934) seeks to do so only preliminarily, it does enough to suggest that much of what we can know about Du Bois can easily become lost in the thickets of both theoretical and esoteric guesswork when scholars leave the huge stone of Du Bois’s agnosticism unturned. In this respect, this biography may be best understood as an act of recovery, a recovery of Du Bois’s agnosticism. And, like Stanley Fish’s rhetorical questioning of the twenty-first-century academy’s readiness for religion in an essay appearing within the Chronicle of Higher Education where he recounts a reporter's desire “to know what would succeed high theory and the triumvirate of race, gender, and class as the center of intellectual energy in the academy [to which he] answered like

Agnostic Legacy

137

a shot: religion,”!° this book attempts to challenge twenty-firstcentury Du Bois scholars to perform similar acts of recovery by interrogating further the single most unheralded dimension of Du Bois’s very long and very impressive life.

NOTES 1. David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century (1919-1963) (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), 557-58. 2. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Bantam, 1903), 153. 3. Du Bois, “Ihe Talented Tenth: Memorial Address,” Boule Journal (Wilberforce, Ohio) 15 (October 15, 1948): 7. 4. Edward Blum, W.E.B. Du Bois, American Prophet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 260. 5. Du Bois, Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 265. 6. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, 35. 7. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, 25. 8. Phil Zuckerman, “Introduction,” in Du Bois on Religion, ed. Phil Zuckerman, 9 (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Alta Mira Press, 2000). 9. George Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 36. 10. Stanley Fish, “One University Under God?” Chronicle of Higher Education 51 (January 7, 2005): 25.

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Index

American Negro Academy, 2, 26, 49,

Communist Party USA. See communism Congregationalism, 1, 2, 4 “The Conservation of Races,” 61, 62,

537.04, 59, 57, 59, 62,63, 64, 65; exe}, LAU Clee thei aleD2

A.M.E. Zion Church, 2, 5, 19, 24, 28537, 594, 812.

63).79, 76

As the Crow Flies, 6, 69, 72 Atlanta University, 29, 48, 49, 55,

Crisis. See The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races

The Crisis: A Record of the Darker

70, 80, 84, 95, 105

Atlanta University Studies, 49, 70, 91 The Atlantic Monthly, 76, 77, 78

Races, 7, 13, 14,-25, 66, 71, 72, 74, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90F 91, 92, 93794, 96,97

Berlin, University of, 5, 35, 36, 39,

Cromwell, John, 26, 58, 60 Crummell, Alexander, 2, 6, 26, 49,

42, 47, 48

Burghardt (Du Bois), Mary, 4, 12,

5371410)

Poyek7, U8

50257)

Oy)

OU LO3,

64, 66, 70, 130, 131

Crummell, M. Boston, 60 Chesnutt, Charles, 60

Darrow, Clarence, 7, 105, 112, 113,

Christianity, 2, 13, 38, 41, 43, 105,

114

bis, 130, 131

Dewey, John, 17, 111 Dewey, Judge Justin, 4, 11, 17, 18,

Circle of Negro Relief, 83, 84, 103, 132

Civil Righis Movement, 129

19, 20, 24, 31, 38, 39, 40

dogma, 1, 3, 134 Douglass, Frederick, 55, 60 Dusk of Dawn, 49, 87

Colored Press Association, 26, 27 communism, 4, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134

139

Index

140

faith, 3 First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18,19;20,)35,137, 38,43 Fisk University, 5, 29, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 53, 54, 105

Fortune, T. Thomas, 2, 5, 16, 21, 24,

The Negro in the South, 60 Negro preachers, 103, 104, 105, 114 The Negro Problem, 60 New England Congregationalism. See Congregationalism New York Age, 26 New York Globe (Freeman), 16, 18, 1975235, 25, 207297 25 nou, Se.

26, 27, 60

Franklin, Benjamin, 16

Niagara Movement, 70, 79, 80, 132

Ghana, 17) 14-16) 77129

Occasional Papers, 59, 61, 64, 71 Ovington, Mary White, 83, 89, 95,

Ghandi, 7, 129, 131 God, 3, 4 Great Barrington, 2, 4

1A

The Philadelphia Negro, 70 Harlem Renaissance,

13

Harvard University, 16, 36, 38, 42, 44, 45, 47, 53, 54, 130

Hayes, Rutherford B., 48 Hopkins, Samuel, 9

Poor Richard. See Franklin, Benjamin Protestantism, 1, 16 Providence, 4 reform, 4 “A Renaissance of Ethics,” 47

Huxley, Thomas, 3, 4 James, William, 5, 44, 45, 46, 47 Jesus Christ, 14, 43

Johnson, James Weldon, 83, 107, 108

Schmoller, Gustav, 48 Scudder, Evarts, 4, 12, 13, 15, 17,

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 7, 129, 130,

Slater Fund, 48

19,20, 38, 39

The Souls of Black Folk, 55, 76, 77,

131A l33

0,7),

Loi

Luther, Martin, 35, 36

Spingarn, Joel, 89, 90

Marx, Karl. See communism Marxism. See communism

Talented Tenth, 13, 61, 65, 66, 79,

McKay, Claude, 14

Taylor, Charles, 10, 11

NAACP. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People National Association for the

uplift. See reform utilitarian writing, 109

104

Villard, Oswald Garrison, 89, 90

Advancement of Colored People, O71, OOF

Lael

Or TOR OU,eL,

82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 108, 132

Negro churches, 82, 97, 103, 104, 105, 109, 110, 114

Washington, Booker T., 25, 60, 77, VAshsabile,

White, Walter, 97 Wilberfource University, 5, 6, 48, 49, 54, 55, 105

About the Author

Brian L. Johnson is chief of staff at Johnson C. Smith University and associate professor of English within its Center for Integrated Studies. He received his B.A. in English from The Honors College, Johnson C. Smith University (1995), and his M.A. in English from The University of Wisconsin-Madison (1998). He earned his Ph.D. in English from The University of South Carolina at Columbia (2003). He has formerly held a 2006-2007 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation/Career Enhancement Fellowship, a 2005-2006 Lilly Endowment/Center for Christian Studies Fellowship (Gordon College), and a 2004-2005 nonresident fellowship within the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research (Harvard University). He is the editor of Du Bois on Reform: Periodical-based Leadership for African Americans (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

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NATIONAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 1786 10245 6479

“SOCIOLOGY »AMERICAN STUDIES

as Brian L. Johnson’s remarkable biography of WE.B. Du Bois describes the

evolution of Du Bois’s religious views from his birth until his resignation as editor of Crisis magazine in 1934. e W.E.B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism, 1868-1934 traces Du Boiss mount-

. “ing skepticism through his earliest church experiences to his sociological

- training iinBerlin culminating with his writings in The Crisis: A Record of : the Darker Races. Johnson argues that despite Du Bois’s frequent use of

“Protestant religious rhetoric, the mature Du Bois was a critic of African aS American religious organizations and their leaders and a scientifically oriented seneie who did not adhere to any religious orthodoxy. BRIAN L JOHNSON: is associate professor of English and chief of staffat Jokes C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For orders and information please contact the publisher ROWMAN

& LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 * Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 * www.rowmanilittlefield.com Cover image: From the W.E.B. Du Bois Collection, MSo312-0390, Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts, Amherst