Daniel Walden lecture, "The Struggle and the Progress: DuBois' Crisis Years, 1910-1934," at the University of Iowa, June-July 1972

Speaker 1: The following is an address recorded at the fourth annual Institute for Afro-American culture held at the university of Iowa, June 25th through July 7th, 1972. Speaking on the Struggle and the Progress, Du Bois Crisis Years, 1910 to 1934 is Daniel Walden, Professor of American Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Introducing Professor Walden is Charles T. Davis, Professor of English at the University of Iowa and chairman of the Institute. Charles T. Davi...: It's my pleasure today to introduce Professor Daniel Walden of Pennsylvania State University. It is always difficult to indeed to introduce a friend because one is caught in a dilemma. The tendency always is to tell stories about the friend and not to indicate a tall, what his professional competence is, or the reason why he's been invited. And I have such stories to tell but at another time. I shall resist that tendency. Professor Walden is Professor of American studies at Pennsylvania State University. He has a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York, a Master's degree from Columbia University in American History and a Doctorate from New York University in American Civilization. One could say that he has exhausted the possibilities of New York City. Charles T. Davi...: He exhibited earlier a deep interest in Black culture and Black literature. His thesis if I remember correctly was on Du Bois, and this is an interest which has continued with him after the completion of that thesis. He's the author of three books; American Reform: The Ambiguous Legacy, Readings in American Nationalism, and a third book which in its way, I must say superlative since it was a book which was done with me, and the title of this book is On Being Black writings by Afro-Americans. I don't think that's the precise title though, is it? Daniel Walden: From Frederick Douglass to the present day. Charles T. Davi...: From Frederick Douglass to the present day. A rather different subtitle. I won't talk about his labors on that volume but I will simply say that there was ample indication of his deep knowledge of Black literature and his deep commitment to Black literature. As I look at the range of his articles I see are very rewarding diversity of interests. He has written pieces on intellectual history, the contemporary opposition to the ideas of Booker T. Washington which has appeared in the journal of Negro history. He's written pieces on American history. I see Benjamin Franklin Deism: A Phase, which appeared in The Historian. He's written also on the pedagogy of teaching Black literature and Black history, Teaching Negro History: One White Experience in School and Society, and much to my amazement, because it doesn't represent, it seems to be a talent that I was aware of, he's written on music, Black Music and Cultural Nationalism the Maturation of Archie Shepp, which appeared in the Negro American Literature Forum. Charles T. Davi...: He has a general interest in ethnic literatures. I recall indeed in the years in which I taught at Pennsylvania State University, he was teaching not only in the Afro-American studies there, but he organized and taught for the first time a course in the Jewish novel, and he's interested as well in other aspects of Jewish literature in America. I'm delighted that he's here because in part he's just finished completing a book on Du Bois, W. E. B. Du Bois' Crisis writings. He has been working for some time and I have not to refrain from asking the state of this second work, that first work is forthcoming being published by Facet, but he's been working for some time on a biography of Du Bois. And I'm not asking him at the moment what the publication plans of this book is, but I'm sure obviously it would be published in the very near future. I'm very pleased then to introduce Professor Daniel Walden. Professor Walden's topic will be the Struggle and the Progress Du Bois' Crisis Years, 1910 to 1934. Daniel Walden: Thank you Professor Davis. I'm very glad that you didn't launch into the stories that you promised. Since I arrived here yesterday, I found that I had to redo some parts of my paper because of what I took to be the subject, the content of some of the talks and the discussions in the past. But other than a few rough spots like that which were just introduced or deleted, the paper stands as was written. In the summer of 1908, a mob in Springfield, Illinois, composed of many of the best citizens ran wild for two days, killed and wounded scores of Blacks and drove thousands from the city. Among the indignant articles on the subject was one by William English Walling titled Race War in the North. It was in The Independent September 3rd, 1908. Daniel Walden: Noting the place Lincoln's hometown and the incidents of violence, Walling stated that either the spirit of the abolitionists of Lincoln and of Lovejoy must be revived and we must come to treat the Negro on a plane of absolute political on social equality or Vardaman and Tillman will soon have transferred the race war to the North. He asked, "Who realizes the seriousness of the situation? What large and powerful body of citizens is ready to come to the Negros aid." As a direct result of his article, a national biracial organization soon came into being, headed by Walling, Mary White Ovington, Charles Edward Russell, Henry Moskowitz and Oswald Garrison Villard. It soon attracted scores of nationally famous intellectuals, ministers, writers, social workers, progressives, and socialists. Daniel Walden: The call that Villard wrote called all believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty. Meeting at the end of May and early in June, 1909 in New York city, the conference hammered away at the theme of the need for suffrage for Blacks and the need for an end to white violence, persecution on segregation. It also asked for the kind of education that individual talents necessitated. Dr. Du Bois' speech centered on the ways in which disfranchisement, second-class education and the curbs on civil freedom seemed part of a pattern to persuade Blacks of their alleged inferiority and place. Out of the meeting also came the awareness that a permanent organization was needed. At a second conference on May 12th, 1910, a new organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People came into being. Daniel Walden: Two days later, Dr. Du Bois was nominated for the salary job of chairman of the executive committee. Later in the month, Du Bois' title was changed to director of publicity and research separate from the chairmanship and administrative position that Du Bois did not want, which was immediately translated into the editorship of the NAACP's new journal, The Crisis. Though it was clear that his salary could not be guaranteed for more than one year, Du Bois accepted the risk because of what he took to be the importance of the project because the Niagara movement was expiring and because his professorship at Atlanta University was imperiled following his attacks on Booker T.. Washington. At this point, Du Bois left Atlanta University and enthusiastically took on his new job in the summer of 1910. Interracial and character, protest minded in tone, legalistic in its approach to the kind of agent needed for change, major voice of the NAACP from its inception was The Crisis magazine. Daniel Walden: To all intents and purposes indeed from 1910 to 1934, The Crisis was the creation of Dr. Du Bois. As the association described it in 1934 as he left the organization, he founded The Crisis without a cent of capital and made it completely self-supporting with a peak circulation of 106,000. In fact, he transformed the Black world, created what had never existed before, a Black intelligentsia. He gave a new orientation to the relationship of the Black and white races. And as the association admitted without him, the association could never have been what it was and is. Daniel Walden: The first number of The Crisis stated its object clearly, "to set forth those facts and arguments would show the danger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people. As for the name, The Crisis, that came from James Russell Lowell's poem, The Present Crisis. It also came from the editor's view that this is a critical time in the history of the advancement of men. With an eye on the future, The Crisis held that capitalicity on tolerance, reason and forbearance can today make the world old dream of human brotherhood approach realization while bigotry and prejudice emphasized rates, consciousness, and force can repeat the awful history of the contact of nations and groups in the past. We strive," he ended this part. "We strive for this higher and broader vision of peace and Goodwill." Daniel Walden: And as to the editorial page which would dominate the magazine for more than a quarter century. Du Bois announced that it would stand for the rights of men, irrespective of color or race for the highest ideals of American democracy and for a reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals. In the same issue, it was noted that Booker T. Washington then in Europe had stated that the race problem in the South was becoming more and more reassuring and that the Blacks in the United States were better off than the poor classes in Europe. Daniel Walden: This straight faced jibe was reinforced by a followup in the December issue reporting that Washington "recently gave us a glowing picture of the progress, industrial, intellectual and moral made by his colored fellow citizens in the United States during recent years." Tellingly this latter report concluded with the news that a powerful appeal to Europe repudiating Washington's words had been signed by many of the most influential teachers and professional men among the Black community. Du Bois had agreed that The Crisis was not to be a weapon in a personal war and in fact, he did avoid editorials on the subject. It was obvious that few issues could fail to include a mention of the leader of the people. It was typical for Washington to be unfailingly patient and optimistic to write a 1904 that we owe it, not only to ourselves, but to our children to look always upon the bright side of things. Daniel Walden: It was equally typical for Du Bois to proclaim The Crisis purpose is to be the fight to make Negros politically free from disfranchisement, legally free from caste and socially free from insult. The first issue of The Crisis, November, 1910 had a circulation of 1,000. Early in 1912, circulation had gone up to 16,000 and within that year had climbed to 30,000 copies monthly. Du Bois realizing the extent of his domain confined his activities to the magazine. He rarely tried to directly influence NAACP policies. On the other hand, he wanted to complete freedom in editing The Crisis. As Du Bois well knew, it was his constant and provocative self analysis that sold the paper. In the early days of The Crisis, Du Bois was a progressive who became a polemicist and propagandist consistently against segregated schools long before Gunnar Myrdal's An American dilemma, long before the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision, Du Bois wrote that separate but equal school or inherently inferior schools. Daniel Walden: Again and again, he tried to explain to his readers the meaning of racial justice and social equality. By stressing the rights of all men he hoped to win Black support to the protest against segregated patterns and on this point, Du Bois never wavered. The demand for social justice, a corollary, made in a variety of ways was consistently trumpeted. As lynchings continued, Du Bois protested. He made clear that lynching was murder and murder violence, and that the use of violence had been a knee jerk reaction emanating from deep psychological causes and that in many cases the lynched Negro was not guilty of assault. At times, the attempts of Blacks to resist this cruel treatment to protect Black women against white assault also resulted in mob violence which he also resisted. Of equal weight where Du Bois' attacks on segregation, his attempts to show the relationship and ship between discrimination and the maintenance of the status quo. Daniel Walden: In his opinion, the whites were so conscience stricken, so unsure of their "superiority" that they had to continue the regulatory institutions that made up their racial system. When he was a young man, Du Bois recalled he had held that leadership ship was going to be exerted by an educated class. In my case, he wrote, "I had a specific problem. Here was a massive people who needed to know what life was and what they could do. That could only be settled by leaders who were educated people and who themselves knew." Over the years as we know, Du Bois evolved his belief that in a democracy, education should be for the benefit of all not for just the few. In that education as a solution for the race problem had never really been tried, he kept emphasizing his idea that the lack of a complete rational system elementary education was the greatest arraignment of our democratic experiment. Daniel Walden: As he saw it, education was a way of building the future. Thus he asked Booker T. Washington, if everyone was involved in utilitarian and industrial education who would teach or lead the next generation. Contrary to Washington's overemphasis on the puritan virtues of thrift, patience, hard work and honesty, Du Bois held that, "If we ever compel the world's respect, it will be by virtue of our heads and not our heels." Knowing that civilization moves forward inexorably, that the Black people must move very fast to catch up and keep abreast, he insisted that Black parents can serve and select ability, that giving to the best minds higher college training and that they should give all children the largest amount of general training and intelligence possibly for teaching them a particular trade or vocation. The object of all education he held is not to make men carpenters but to make carpenters men. In this framework, in The Crisis, Du Bois battled for the higher education of Black youth. Daniel Walden: He criticized Hampton Institute for holding onto a past, rooted in a disappearing inferiority laden agricultural basis and he excoriated Fisk's precedent for his allegedly pro-white, anti-student, anti-democratic bias. The issue as he saw it was one of Black control over the education of Black children. Meanwhile, in the face of the hard financial facts of the early 1930s forced to reassess his opinions, Du Bois now wrote that the college and the industrial school had both succeeded and failed. In sending out graduates, the colleges had failed to produce Black leaders while the industrial schools had trained workers for trades that were fast becoming obsolescent. At this time, he called for the schools, and I'm talking about the '30s now, he called for the schools and the colleges to place in American life, Black men "of culture and learning" fitted to earn a living, according to present economic conditions who would know who they were and why, and how to protect themselves and to fight race prejudice. Daniel Walden: When that time arrived, he wrote, "The world of our dreams will come and not otherwise." The church was a special whipping boy for Dr. Du Bois. He castigated white Christianity for its hypocrisy. The Black church undue emphasis on trivialities such as finesse and personal influence. The ministers were condemned for their outworn and unimportant sermons. And for failing to read the handwriting on the wall, he knew that many clergymen were brick and mortar men and his critics. Nonetheless as William James argued in the varieties of religious experience, so Du Bois held that the educated and literate Negro should continue to support his church regardless of his belief or disbelief, but the censures outweighed his rational judgment. The editorials of a free thinker had their social and financial cost. As the attacks continued, The Crisis inevitably alienated some of the monied upper class, Black and white. World War one brought new problems for The Crisis and for its editor. Though the color line sharply drawn, for the most part the Black people remained loyal to their country. Daniel Walden: Of course over the radical, Du Bois could not be silent in the face of the disinherited on the damned, describing the disturber, the agitator, the organizer, he wrote, "They shot from the house tops and they make this world so damned uncomfortable with its nasty burden of evil that it tries to get good and does get better." Undeniably there was improvement. Aware of the age page long complexes sunk now largely to unconscious habit and irrational urge, he noted the increased racial consciousness and solidarity of Blacks just before the great war. He recognized that his people were gaining their own leaders at last, their own voices, their own ideals. In the meantime, reacting to World War one, Du Bois hammered away at president Wilson, though he had initially supported him, and several agencies of the federal government because of the continued discrimination in and out of the armed forces. Daniel Walden: When the justice department cautioned him on his critical militancy and the association hovered over his every word, the editor became a more careful man, his editorials, those sympathetic to the allies, castigated capitalist exploitation and democratic despotism. And he meant the Alliance of those capitalists and skilled workers who profited from the backward countries. In 1915, he had written about the rape of Africa by the Europeans in their wild quest for Imperial expansion at the expense of the colored peoples. After being warned, Du Bois appeared to give more than usual support for the war effort. Warming to the countries cause, even as he believed that the war would benefit his people's cause, he noted the many small gains while he held that the walls of prejudice were bound to come down. Gripped by this hopefulness, he advised Blacks in The Crisis to forget their grievances and to close ranks with whites at home and abroad. "We make no ordinary sacrifice," he wrote, "But we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills." To say that this editorial, Close Ranks, written in the year after the United States entered World War one was unpopular is to understate the situation. Daniel Walden: A. Philip Randolph's messenger attacked him. Indeed most of the Black press vilified him. Du Bois' answer was a denial of a change direction. Again, he reiterated his belief that out of this war will rise and American Negro with the right to vote and the right to work and the right to live without insult. Dedicating his words to the 100,000 men of Black descent and the American armed forces and to the Black millions fighting for great Britain, France and the other allies, he explained that they were fighting not simply for Europe, but for the world. To fight their war in that spirit was the Blacks first duty. Justice from a grateful country would be a sufficient reward. Though this editorial is of dubious merit, it is at least understandable if one keeps in mind the quid pro quo that Du Bois had in mind. He assumed that Black loyalty, fidelity and service would earn a return in a rational world. Daniel Walden: So it would have in a rational and egalitarian world. When it became obvious that his gambit was failing, he returned to his criticism of color discrimination at home. He reminded his readers that tens and thousands of Black men had fought gladly and courageously for America and her highest ideals. He reviewed the injustices suffered by Black troops abroad and at home, and he recognized in an editorial entitled Returning Soldiers, that this country of ours despite all its better souls have done and dreamed is yet a shameful land. In short, since Blacks had bled and died in far off hope, fighting for an American ideal they could do no less than continue that fight for the good of all. The editorial ended defiantly. We return, we return from fighting, we return fighting, make way for democracy. We saved it in France and by the great Jehovah we will save it in the United States of America or know the reason why. Daniel Walden: In December, 1917, the NAACP consisted of 80 branches and 9,200 members. A year later, there were 165 branches and some 45,000 members. In 1917, more than 41,000 copies of The Crisis a month were sold. In 1918 sales rose to more than 75,000. At the same time, it should be pointed out that this is expansion came about at the same time as more militant papers, magazines and organizations appeared on the scene. For example this was the talk that Marcus Garvey was organizing the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Possibly because of the differences in time and age, Du Bois aired has problems and problems he had in The Crisis with Marcus Garvey. Garvey, a talented and very charismatic Black nationalist from Jamaica came to the United States just after Booker T. Washington's death and soon expanded his Negro Improvement Association into the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a mass based organization. Recognized as an, and these are Du Bois' words, "An extraordinary men of men by Du Bois." Daniel Walden: He was criticized for allowing and encouraging a godlike adulation from his followers and for his ineptness, which Du Bois is described at great and explicit length in the magazine for his ineptness leading to fraud in industrial and commercial enterprises. Though Dr. Du Bois never called Garvey dishonest, he did state that Garvey's inability to furnish him with a financial statement of his dealings seemed ill-advised and suspicious. Moreover, though Du Bois could applaud Garvey's emphasis on race, pride, and love, he had to criticize the overemphasis as he saw it on race purity which excluded light-colored, mulatto or mixed Blacks and the back to Africa movement to be accomplished on Garvey's incredibly ill managed Black star line. Unfortunately Du Bois' warnings went unheeded and Garvey was arrested, tried and convicted for fraud. In 1928 looking back, after Garvey had been released from jail, Du Bois wrote that he still wished Garvey well. The point that I wish to make of these years is that given the Wilson administration's marked reluctance to move against discrimination and it's offspring, it is not surprising that there would be a strong reaction to criticism in this area. Daniel Walden: Last one. Du Bois returned to his stinging criticisms late in 1918 and continued into 1919. The department of justice warned The Crisis editor that some of his editorials were objectionable. The NAACP board of directors then requested a member of its legal committee to read each future issue, to guard against further warnings or prosecution. Du Bois confronted by the department of justices demand to know just what the association stood for replied very pungently, "For the enforcement of the constitution of the United States, the irony is that president Wilson had promised fair dealing to the Blacks in 1912 and had gotten about 100,000 Black votes," Du Bois included, "On the basis of that assurance." Instead of fairness, though, there was discrimination in Washington, federal offices and a continuation of disfranchisement, peonage and lynching. No wonder Du Bois and so many Blacks were angry, frustrated and disappointed. Daniel Walden: No wonder that Du Bois is defined the most stupendous labor problem of the 20th century as the problem of the equality of humanity in the world as against white domination of Black and brown and yellow serfs, and no wonder that he found the one new idea of the great war to be the vision of great dreamers that only those who work shall vote and rule. The idealism of the warriors, the disillusionment of the reaction both passed. The realization came, as he phrased it in The Crisis, that, "All of us fools fought a long cruel, bloody and unnecessary war. And we not only killed our boys, we killed faith and hope." The other side of the coin was the newfound courage to push onto the full manhood so well enunciated by the Niagara movement in 1905. The road was not going to be easily crossed. It lies rather in grim, determined, everyday strife as Du Bois put it in 1920. Daniel Walden: Indeed if Blacks were going to realize their potential, not only to fight prejudice successfully, but to unite for the highest ideals, then they had to join hands for the future. At the same time and not surprisingly, the pursuit of art or truth for art or truths sake was increasingly subordinated to the needs of his people. As editor he helped, as you know, he helped scores of Blacks who wrote poetry, fiction and general pros, often publishing them for the first time in The Crisis. He also wrote of hundreds more who wrote and performed music, who painted or sculpted or who pursued their lonely paths and academia. In his most important essay on the criteria of Negro art at 1926, he described beauty in classical terms yet he added, "Today, the mass of human beings are choked away from it and as a result, their lives are distorted and ugly." Daniel Walden: To right that imbalance he looked to the "colored artist." Though he admitted that that which would someday be a part of the racist heritage was not in their hands yet. What he meant was that in his time, truth and beauty and freedom and justice were still circumscribed by racism. Recognizing that in this framework all art is propaganda, Du Bois had to admit that he didn't give a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda, at least until that day when all artists are evaluated on equal terms as human beings not as Blacks or as whites. In the 1920s, though he was in general well pleased with the results of the Harlem Renaissance, he continued to hammer away at those who throttled beauty. As Langston Hughes was to proclaim his Black individualism at the end of the '20s, so Du Bois proclaimed his in these terms, "We want to be Americans, full fledged Americans with all the rights of other American citizens." Daniel Walden: But writing from a Black standpoint to help foster a proper racial self-respect, he fostered a literature of uplift. In his own words looking to the ideal future, he said, "Happy is the artist that breaks through any of these shells for his is the kingdom of eternal beauty." On the political level in the 1920s, Du Bois vacillated from pillar to post reacting to the disappointment with Wilsonian democracy he supported Warren Harding for president in 1920. Caught up in the new progressivism of the old warrior from Wisconsin, he supported La Follette in 1924. In 1928, repudiating Herbert Hoover's negative record on race, linking of the Republican with the occupation of Haiti, white supremacy, big business and the solid South, he found Earl Smith just as objectionable for pretty much the same reasons. Daniel Walden: In an editorial in the paper, one of the cleverest things that he ever did, he advised his readers to look at the record and then he printed an oblong block filled with nothing but white space for both Mr. Hoover and Mr. Smith. Almost despairingly he advised his friends to vote their moral protest by casting their ballots for socialist Norman Thomas. In the same breath he predicted the socialist parties failure. Consistently and yet sarcastically, he had said the same thing early in the decade. Writing in the New Republic he had pointed out that no third party could succeed in the United States unless it appealed to the racist and the Northern and Southern oligarchs. Daniel Walden: In 1922, Du Bois discovered that the Democrats won't have us on the Republicans don't want us. Instead of wringing his hands impotently, he invited his supporters to get behind some third party which represents character, decency and ideals. A few months later, he cautioned his readers that third parties were doomed to failure unless they chuckled the racism and big business interest. The same confusion obtained in 1924. On the one hand then as I've noted, he castigated La Follette and his followers for avoiding a clear cut position on the Negro problem and the Ku Klux Klan. On the other hand, he endorsed La Follette's party and actively campaigned for him only after the fact that he lament the result that a half a million Blacks had voted the progressive ticket. As he sought, a United front could exert sufficient leverage to break the back of the caste system. In turn the political power generated would serve as the framework in which economic gains would be made that Du Bois understood the realities of political America is obvious. Daniel Walden: But frustrated by his inability to convince enough Blacks to desert the major parties, he bounced from idealism to opportunism in the hope of finding a key to maximize the future prospects of the race. Anxious to back a winner, he championed opportunism and pragmatism. But when the Black voter finally did go in the approved direction, voting overwhelmingly for Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, it was because they believed that the new deal portended positive government, hope and a change from the dead hand of the past. There seems little reason to doubt Du Bois' assertion that he had poor demagoguery and to believe that his leadership consistent solely of ideas in action. Faced with massive resistance to desegregation in the 1920s, he talked of tactics opportunistically, while perhaps wistfully he held to the chimera of an ideal. Confronted by the depression he advocated industrial democracy more strongly than ever. By that he meant, "The increased right of the working people to determine the policies of great public services, either through direct public ownership or by private negotiation in the shape of shop committees, working agreements and the like." Daniel Walden: That is to say, in so far as Black votes, intelligence and memory could bring it about, government ownership is the only solution for the present industrial disfranchisement of the Negro. Well before the depression of 1929, Du Bois was in the middle of an ideological economic dispute within the bowels of the association. For years his outspoken editorials had given hope to many but had outraged others. His occasional and irregular trips had been an irritant for some. His growing interest in Pan-Africanism dating from the turn of the century was not widely supported by the board, and his espousal of socialist ideals and the necessity of a Black and white labor Alliance in spite of the constant sniping at Du Bois by the communist party earned him the kudos of the few at the expense of the many and the powerful. Above all, his emphasis in the 1930s on the need for a self sufficient Black economy did not sit well with the association NABOB's at the very moment when they were strenuously emphasizing integration, that Du Bois was advocating the most primitive form of self defense in the face of peril was overlooked. Daniel Walden: Only his contrariness was seen, only his seeming inconsistency was pointed out. As early as 1917 and into the 1920s in The Crisis, Du Bois was thinking about the feasibility of Black manufacturing and consumers' cooperatives. Recognizing the virtual impossibility of the Negro to rise above his unskilled and low status as a whole, he speculated on the ways in which cooperatives might succeed. A circular system seemed to him the only way to ensure economic independence, the raw materials from Black farmers had to be moved in Black trucks with Black drivers to Black factories to be finished and then sold by Blacks to Blacks in cooperative stores. This took care of production and consumption. Buttressing this, he looked with favor on the use of the boycott to force white employers to employ Black employees. In the real world, the consumer also had to have money. Daniel Walden: Unfortunately, it was a lonely task. It was a crusade in isolation. For as he said in 1933, "There seems no hope that America in our day will yield in its color or race hatred, any substantial ground. And we have no physical nor economic power nor any Alliance with other social or economic classes that will force compliance with decent civilized ideals and church state industry or art." Caught in this bind, in self defense on behalf of his people, Du Bois argued group segregation was an asset, not a liability. Arguing against the associations reliance on a slogan, the automatic opposition to segregation of any kind no matter the circumstances, he made a convincing, but losing plea for his idea. When his attack drew blood, the end was in sight. Du Bois' second career was finished in 1934 when his definition and use and urging of nondiscriminatory segregation ran head on into the unmoving stand of the association explicitly and squarely opposed to segregation. In general Du Bois' theory had had been that race prejudice was primarily a matter of ignorance among men and that when they were presented with the truth, hate would melt away. Daniel Walden: Certainly the old attitudinal stereotypes were giving way. But after 20 years the barriers of race prejudice were as strong as they had been in 1910. Only in the cities could he see the counter pressures generated by the oppression. As segregation grew, it involved an increased differentiation from the whites, but it also involved greater integration in the sense of a strong self consciousness and a more harmonious working together with a broader field for such cooperation. In other words, it was in the cities that whatever group advancement was possible would take place. Moreover, as Du Bois Bois explained, group advancement would take place on the basis of collective action on the basis of group solidarity. Needless to say, these insights and conclusions are the bedrock on which the present freedom movement is based. Just as important as Du Bois' concept of race. Since the race problem was not a matter of fair, clean competition but a matter of segregation and its ramifications, then the reactions of those involved had to be explicated. Daniel Walden: In our times, as James Baldwin has made it so clear, the Black no longer believes in the good faith of white Americans if indeed he ever could have. In Baldwin's words, "How can one respect, let alone adopt the values of a people who do not on any level, whatever live the way they say they do or the way they say they should." As Du Bois put it, "I was not an American. I was not a man. I was by long education and continued compulsion and daily reminder, a colored man in a white world and that white world often existed primarily so far as I was concerned to see with sleepless vigilance that I was kept within bounds, that I was and must be a thing apart." In this way, Dr. Du Bois has realized that the fight against race prejudice was not simply a battle against the racial, conscious determination of some white Americans to oppress the Black, rather the Black man by this time was facing age long complexes sunk down largely to the level of unconscious habit and irrational urge. Daniel Walden: And this meant not only the patience to wait but the ability to prepare for the long siege against the strongholds of the caste system. This involved a sacrifice. "And this meant," he insisted in 1940, "That you must work together and in unison. You must evolve and support your own social institutions. You must transform your attack from the foray of self assertive individuals to the must might have an organized body." The 1930s impelled Du Bois to his first intensive study of Marx. Though, he had been a "socialist of the path" since the beginning of the century, it was on the heels of the 1929 depression that The Crisis editor became intimately acquainted with the writings of Marx. In his first teachings in the South from 1896 to 1910, socialism had been taught only as an incidental matter. Daniel Walden: He recalled much later, "I mentioned it as we went through the various plans for social reorganization. I gave practically no attention to Marx. I didn't know anything about Marx myself." At Harvard, Marx was regarded as one of the dreamers who had thought up a new system that had never been tried. In short Du Bois came out of Harvard with no consciousness of Marx, of being of any more importance than any other thinker if as much. On the other hand, when Du Bois returned to Atlanta University in 1934, he instituted and taught for two years a class on the communist manifesto, "I put the communist manifesto in the hands of each student and we had a library and Marxism and criticism of Marxism." As he recalled it was a complete and a very, very interesting course. "Here was a man that I had gradually come to learn was one of the great economic philosophers of our day and he ought to be studied." Daniel Walden: In 1933 Du Bois conducted a seminar on Karl Marx and the Negro at Atlanta University as a visiting professor. He published an essay, Marxism and the Negro Problem in The Crisis in May of the same year. Although George Streeter, an associate from those years, denied that Du Bois ever did more than turn to those vivid pages where Marx hammered telling effect against the English society that gained its wealth through the African slave trade, it is apparent that Du Bois did read Marx. Besides the degree of his understanding and his reading is really irrelevant. His emphasis on the economic plight of the Negro, the immorality of the slave trade and the moral apathy of the Western nations went back to the turn of the century. Daniel Walden: The point is that in the 1930s, he was faced by a depression that threatened the survival of his people and he was faced by the realization that though socialism seem to work in the Soviet union, it had no future in the United States either in the socialist party or in the communist party. The communist party incidentally was led then in Du Bois' words, as he put it in The Crisis, "By a group of pitiable mental equipment who give no thought to the intricacies of the American situation, the vertical and horizontal divisions of the American working classes and to offer in reality nothing to us except social equality in jail." Over the years, Du Bois had tried to convince the board that The Crisis should be independent of the associations restrictions. At times he had asked permission to be responsible for it financially as well as ideologically. He had always acted as though the journal was his to command, that The Crisis and Du Bois were one. He had invariably written as the mentor of the race. Daniel Walden: He would teach his people how to live and thus release their inner potential, and he would explain how and why Blacks were discriminated against and how they could protest. The difficulties then between the editor and the association were of longstanding. Simply put the issue was whether Du Bois was responsible primarily to the board or to himself. Despite several periods of peaceful association, the fact is that almost from the beginning, the editor's policy of directing the magazine according to his dictates while separating himself as much as possible from the associations restricting leadership and machinery had been the principal bone of contention to Du Bois his independence of action as the educated protest leader of his people was at stake. To the board, the lines of responsibility, power, policy, and fiscal problems were all important. In his eyes, in Du Bois' eyes, writing in current history magazine in 1935, the NAACP simply did not recognize the fundamental economic basis of social growth and change. Daniel Walden: Early in 1929, the problems began to come to a head. When Du Bois asked for a $10,000 subsidy and was turned down, though nearly 5,000 was given to The Crisis between 1929 and 1930, personality conflict developed. And when executive secretary James Weldon Johnson's role was taken up by Walter White, the friction increased. Du Bois even threatened to resign at this juncture. Organizing The Crisis publishing company as a legal maneuver in 1932 with Walter White on the board of directors of the new company merely widened the breach. Du Bois' reaction was to ask for more democratic control. In this context, he wanted the NAACP board elected by the general membership so that the leadership unfriendly to him would be replaced by sympathetic academicians like E. Franklin Frazier. None of these attempts to save his magazine succeeded. The fury of his criticisms widened the fisher. A restatement of his idea that self segregation economically would free his people clashed head on with the associations determination to continue to oppose segregation. Daniel Walden: Thus in April, 1934, when the board ruled that from then on no paid official could criticize the association in The Crisis without approval, Du Bois refused and made the decision to leave. On June 1st in a letter to the board of directors, he announced his determination not to move from his stated position. On June 26th he resigned arguing that prior approval of his remarks amounted to a form of censorship indicative of the board's spiritual poverty. From 1910 until 1934, Du Bois had been the most important factor in the raising of the races morale. His consistent and forceful pressure induced many to go on to a higher education. He taught hundreds of thousands not only how to protest but how to live. He was the living exemplar of the pinnacle to which Blacks aspired. For a quarter century he had presented and clarified the pertinent issues. As scientifically as was possible, he described the shortcomings of the race as well as the reasons why the race was held back and how it had been scarred. Daniel Walden: He was also primarily responsible for the acceptance among Blacks for the equal rights doctrine and he was indirectly the key policy maker in the NAACP because he was the editor of The Crisis. Today, the contributions of Dr. Du Bois are history, that he took a different and unpopular path, that he joined the communist party when he was 92 years old is true, but it cannot obliterate the lifetime he gave for his race and for mankind. As Roy Wilkins remembered, two Negroes of my generation, Dr. Du Bois was in our youth, a great and shining the light, inspiring us to higher endeavor, challenging us to prepare for leadership roles, demanding of us integrity, scholarship and dedication. Daniel Walden: What then is his legacy? On the one hand, there is his commitment to his ideals. As he put it in 1902, "By every civilized and peaceful method, we must strive for the right which the world accords to men." On the other hand, there is the fact that he inspired generations of Blacks and of whites to struggle for justice, mankind, equal access to opportunity and choice. As he put it so very well in 1958 in a speech to his great grandson, he said. "Doing what must be done that is eternal even when it walks with poverty. Thank you. Charles T. Davi...: [inaudible] to put questions to the speaker. I'm sure that you have some questions to put to Mr. Walden. Speaker 4: May I make one comment that you'd be interested in-