Raymond Wolters lecture, "Ideology, Personality, and the Conflict Between W.E.B. DuBois and Walter White for Control of the NAACP," at the University of Iowa, June 6, 1977

Speaker 1: The following was recorded June 6th, 1977, as part of the ninth annual Institute for Afro-American culture. Ideology, personality, and the conflict between W.E.B. Du Bois and Walter White for control of the NAACP is the subject of this talk by Raymond Wolters, professor of history at the University of Delaware. He is introduced by Dr. Darwin Turner, chairman of the Afro American studies program at the University of Iowa. Darwin Turner: Our lecturer Dr. Weaver was an individual who matured in the Depression. As you recall earning an MA in 1931, he entered government service in 1933. Our lecturer this afternoon is the first of what I choose to call with no condescension since I'm among their number, what I choose to call our Depression babies. Dr. Raymond Wolters, born in 1938, earned an AB from Stanford in 1960 and a PhD in history from the University of California at Berkeley in 1967. From 1965 to the present, he has taught in the history department at the University of Delaware, where he holds the rank of professor. Darwin Turner: The recipient of grants and aid from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Philosophical Society. Also the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Wolters has published articles on the NAACP and on blacks in industry. I wanted originally to say blacks in the labor by fear that current emphasis on feminist concerns might lead to false inferences. Darwin Turner: Although Dr. Wolters has expressed greater pride in his more recent book, The New Negro on Campus: Black College Rebellions of the 1920s, we have invited him particularly because of the search which led to his book Negroes and the Great Depression: The Problem of Economic Recovery. And to a later article, The New Deal and the Negro. Darwin Turner: Currently Professor Wolters is studying Black American leadership of the first four decades of the 20th century for a book tentatively titled Strife and Contention: Factionalism Among Black Leaders. This afternoon, he combines present and past interests in a presentation entitled Ideology, Personality, and the Struggle Between Walter White and W.E.B. Du Bois for Control of the NAACP. Dr. Wolters. Raymond Wolters: Thank you, Dr. Turner. It's a pleasure to be here in Iowa. When Dr. Turner wrote to me two or three months ago and asked me to appear here, I gave him the title that he just read to you, Personality, Ideology and the Conflict Between Du Bois and Walter White for Control of the NAACP. And I intend to address that topic. But as I've prepared my remarks, as I got to writing them down on paper and learned what I was really thinking. The parallels between Du Bois's struggle with White and his struggle with Booker T. Washington became apparent to me. And also, it became apparent to me that Du Bois, at least in my opinion, has not been treated very fairly by historians. So in today's lecture, I want to touch somewhat briefly on the Washington-Du Bois controversy, and then a little greater length on the controversy between White and Du Bois, and focused as somewhat historiographically. And explain to you why I feel some of the recent historical literature has slighted Dr. Du Bois. Raymond Wolters: In the course of his long career as a prominent Black leader and Negro spokesman, W.E.B. Du Bois became embroiled in numerous controversies. Most of the disputes were with whites. But on several occasions, Dr. Du Bois took up the cudgels against blacks, who he thought were leading Negros astray. Two of the most important of his confrontations with Black leaders pitted Du Bois against Booker T. Washington and Walter White. Ironically, Du Bois emerged triumphant from the battle with Washington, the more prominent adversary. Only to fall victim to White, a relatively obscure colleague in the NAACP's national office. Raymond Wolters: But Du Bois fared better in life than he has in written history. For recent scholarship has refurbished the reputations of Washington and White while Du Bois has been neglected by many scholars and dismissed by others as a cantankerous prophet whose sound ideas were vitiated by embittered adherence to something called racial chauvinism. Raymond Wolters: To Booker Washington, the keys to Black progress were job training and interracial harmony. At Tuskegee Institute, the vocational school that he established in central Alabama in 1881, students were instructed in more than 40 trades. Washington was also famous for his skill in placating Southern whites. He believed that no movement for the elevation of Southern blacks could succeed without the cooperation of Southern whites. And thus he focused public attention on examples of white beneficence while slighting instances of oppression. Washington said that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him. And that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done. Raymond Wolters: Along with flattering, the white south, Washington stressed the importance of getting a job. His ultimate goal was equal opportunity for blacks, but he believed this would be achieved only after Negroes had acquired the skills and property that are prerequisites for respectability. He also believed that Southern whites would not tolerate education for Black equality. And consequently, he let it be thought that Tuskegee was training blacks for subordinate positions in the American economy. Raymond Wolters: Many blacks were infuriated by Washington's synthesis of truckling and vocational training. Monroe Trotter of the Boston Guardian complained that Tuskegee was training too many blacks to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. The idea lying back of the Tuskegee curriculum, Trotter wrote is the relegating of a race to serfdom. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois and other delegates to the 1906 Niagara meeting declared their unequivocal opposition to any system designed to educate Black boys and girls simply as servants or underlings, or simply for the use of other people. Du Bois insisted that beyond the questions of vocational training and the efficacy of protest, his controversy with Washington centered around the manner in which patronage was dispensed at Tuskegee Institute. The leaders of business and secular philanthropy conferred with Washington before giving appointments or promotions to Negroes, with the tacit understanding that Washington's approval would be withheld from any Black who threatened the status quo. The process involved much cruelty and disappointment for unconventional thinkers as Du Bois himself learned when financial support for his Atlanta University conferences was sharply restricted after his first public disagreement with Washington. Raymond Wolters: And this way, the Negro intelligentsia with suppressed and hammered into conformity while Tuskegee was exalted as the capital of Black America. By ostracizing blacks who protested against racial injustice while rewarding those who obligingly adapted to the harsh reality of white supremacy, Washington and the secular philanthropists taught Negroes to accept what whites were willing to offer. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois believed that a corrupt bargain had been consummated. Secular philanthropist and government officials had delegated to Washington responsibility for keeping tabs on blacks. For the purpose of determining which deserved censure, and which were worthy of rewards. Washington was condemned for participating in this agreement, but Du Bois emphasized that the suppression of Black protest I quote, "Was not solely the idea and activity of Black folk at Tuskegee, but was largely encouraged and given financial aid through certain white groups and individuals in the north." Raymond Wolters: By 1903, Du Bois had decided that he must come out in public opposition to Washington. "I was greatly disturbed at this time," he wrote. "Not because I was in absolute opposition to the things that Mr. Washington was advocating, but because I was strongly in favor of more open agitation against wrongs. And above all, I resented the choking off of even mild and reasonable opposition to Mr. Washington." Raymond Wolters: Du Bois told Oswald Garrison Villard that Washington was trying to ruin any man who openly criticizes his methods in any particular. To Archibald Grimke and Kelly Miller, Du Bois confided that he refused to wear Mr. Washington's livery or to put on his collar. "I propose to fight the battle to the last ditch. If I fight it stark alone." Raymond Wolters: Du Bois did not have to fight alone. Joining with others of similar opinions, Du Bois established the Niagara Movement in 1905 and the NAACP in 1909 and '10. Washington did all he could to impede the progress of these rival organizations. But even before his death in 1915, Washington was on the defensive, and by 1920, the NAACP was ascendant with chapters in 400 cities and a total membership of 50,000. Raymond Wolters: James Weldon Johnson later recalled that one not familiar with Negro life in the 12 or 14 year period following 1903 cannot imagine the bitterness of the antagonism between the two well-defined parties. One, made up from the preponderating number of conservatives under the leadership of Booker T. Washington, and the other made up from the militant elements under the leadership of W.E.B. Du Bois. The strategies, tactics, and operations of the opposing camps have been described in several valuable works by Herbert Aptheker, Stephen Fox, Louis Harlan, August Meier, Elliott Rudwick, and others. Raymond Wolters: The final victory of Du Bois and the NAACP was so complete, that some writers have discounted the influence that Washington once exercised. Carter G. Woodson for example, wrote that, "The Negroes with the exception of a small minority regarded Washington's policy as the policy of surrender to the oppressors, who desired to reduce the whole race to menial service. And they proceeded militantly to attack Washington, branding him with the opprobrium of a traitor to his people." Raymond Wolters: And the poet Langston Hughes asserted that Washington was called the leader of his people. So build on the national scene, but the mantle of his leadership was bestowed on him by white America. To Negroes, Booker T. Washington was for a quarter of a century a famous man, a distinguished speaker, often a front page celebrity. But never in any sense their leader in the way that Martin Luther King became a leader, inspiring hope, passion, and intense devotion in a wide following. Raymond Wolters: Other writers have been more generous in their assessment of Washington. Historian C. Vann Woodward for instance, has suggested that Washington devised a strategy for survival in a very difficult time when to quote Woodward, "The hope born of Reconstruction had all but died for the Negro when disfranchisement blocked his political advance and the caste system closed the door to integration with the white world. When the North had abandoned him to the South and the South was yielding to the clamor of her extremists." Raymond Wolters: The assertion that Washington adjusted to harsh realities is stated systematically and extensively in Louis Harlan's Bancroft Prize winning biography of Washington. And in August Meier's influential monograph Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915. Meier especially suggests that B lack ideology vacillated between protest and integration on the one hand, and accommodation and self-help on the other. According to Meier, advocates of integration came to the fore during times of Negro progress as during the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. And exponents of self-help enjoyed popularity during times of repression as during the turn of the 20th century era of Jim Crow and disfranchisement. Raymond Wolters: Yet there are weaknesses in this explanation, I believe. Like other cyclical theses, this one is essentially simplistic. It also perpetuates one of the problems of much of our written history in that it presents Black activity as essentially a reflex response to white constraints. And it assumes a greater degree of white unity than often existed. Raymond Wolters: This last point was brought to my attention when Herbert Aptheker challenged the statement in my book, The New Negro on Campus. "Given the strength of the Southern conviction that blacks must be kept down," I wrote, "It is difficult to see how Booker Washington could have preached, or his people practiced a radically different philosophy. Only a program that promised not to raise the Negro out of his place, but to make him a more efficient servant and laborer could have reconciled many whites to the idea of Negro education." Raymond Wolters: Good Marxist that he is, Aptheker asserted that the idea of keeping Black people down was not a Southern conviction, but the conviction of the masters of industry, banks and plantations North and South. And the purpose was to assure a significantly underpaid and non-unionized working force. Raymond Wolters: Aptheker may have exaggerated the ulterior motives of the well-to-do. And I think he did underestimate the extent of white consensus on training Negroes for subordinate jobs. But he correctly noted that Southern whites did not always agree on the proper treatment of blacks. And white disunity was rarely more pronounced than during the populous 1880s and 1890s when Booker Washington was rising to prominence in central Alabama. Raymond Wolters: The Farmers Alliance enjoyed great popularity in Alabama, where the populous candidate for Governor Reuben Kolb proclaimed that economic interest, not race, was the central issue in politics. Like his counterparts, Tom Watson in Georgia and William Mahone in Virginia, Reuben Kolb appealed for Black votes and defended the Negro's right to hold political office, serve on juries, and receive a fair hearing in the courts. Kolb challenged the cult of Southern racism and urged common action among farmers and workers of the South Black and white. Kolb's appeal did not fall on deaf ears. He won the votes of thousands of poor blacks and whites in 1892, and probably would have been elected governor if the ballots had been counted fairly. Raymond Wolters: Alarmed by the rising tide of populism, Alabama's conservative Democrats responded by enacting the disenfranchising constitution of 1901, a constitution that limited the franchise to those who were literate and able to pay a poll tax. The traditional wisdom would have it that disenfranchising constitution such as this were enacted not from any abstract consideration of the merits of limiting the franchise to the literate, but to disenfranchise blacks without at the same time violating the 15th amendment to the constitution. Raymond Wolters: As J. Morgan Kousser has recently shown in a very good book called The Shaping of Southern Politics, however, behind the white supremacy slogans and the front of racial solidarity, there raged the struggle among Southern whites that is usually overlooked. "What are we here for?" asked one delegate to the disenfranchising convention. Not to preserve white supremacy. White supremacy is secure in Alabama. The real question was which whites should be supreme? Only 52.5% of those voting in Alabama favored ratification of the disenfranchising constitution. And an analysis of the vote reveals that those in favor hailed from the wealthier wards and districts. The main opposition to disfranchisement came from the Wiregrass section of Southeastern Alabama, the hill counties and the mining towns where poor whites correctly perceived that many of them would lose the ballot along with the blacks. Raymond Wolters: Meier and Harlan ignored this background of class conflict. And instead assume that whites were United in a campaign to repress blacks, and that poor white hatred of Negroes was especially virulent. Thus, they suggest that Washington had no alternative but to opportunistically accommodate Black strategy to the racism of his era. Raymond Wolters: But this oversimplifies the situation, I believe. When Washington endorsed suffrage restriction, asking only that the literacy test be applied to both races, he did more than adjust to the realities of his time. He sided with the rich whites against the poor populists. And when Washington repeatedly praised well to do Caucasians, he implicitly endorsed dependence on the white elite as preferable to a biracial alliance with white workers whose economic situation was similar to that of most Black workers Raymond Wolters: Meier, Harlan, and Woodward have also exaggerated the extent to which as Woodward put it, "A whole generation of Northern liberals and former abolitionists were mouthing the shibboleths of white supremacy regarding the Negroes innate inferiority shiftlessness and hopeless unfitness for full participation in the white man's civilization." Raymond Wolters: With Social Darwinism enjoying intellectual respectability in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most whites did believe that the races were at different stages of cultural evolution, and that blacks were not yet ready for equal rights. But as James McPherson has shown in his impressive study of white liberalism during the years from reconstruction to the founding of the NAACP, there was also an influential minority of liberal white egalitarians. Most former abolitionists did not abandon the struggle for Negro rights after 1870. Instead, they established Black schools and for two generations carried on an egalitarian crusade to equip blacks with the character and skills needed for upward social mobility. Raymond Wolters: In stressing the persistence of white liberalism, McPherson challenges Meier's assertion that's, "Since the white abolitionists were not for the most part genuinely committed to a belief in essential human dignity of Negroes, they found it easy to reject the ideas of a racially egalitarian society." Raymond Wolters: And in showing that the missionary societies spent four times as much money for Negro education in 1906 as they had spent in 1870, McPherson discredits Harlan's contention that, "White liberal support for Black education quote melted away," after reconstruction. Raymond Wolters: Thus a major defense of Washington, that he realistically accommodated to the reality of racism in his age, rests on a questionable interpretation of the social context. Meier and Harlan have ignored the dimension of intra racial white class conflict, and the possibility of biracial working class solidarity. And Meier, Harlan, and Woodward have neglected the persistence of white egalitarianism and consequently have disparaged the efficacy of biracial liberalism. Raymond Wolters: Yet Du Bois and many other blacks and whites then living in the South and working in Negro institutions insisted that there were realistic alternatives to Washington's strategy. The difficulties encountered by Black institutions and betterment organizations in the early 20th century attest to the reality of racism, but the survival of egalitarian Black colleges and the early success of the NAACP suggests to me that Du Bois's appraisal of the situation was not unrealistic. Raymond Wolters: Recent historians have also exaggerated the popularity of Washington's policies. While noting that Black opposition to Washington was never silenced, Meier concluded that Washington's program appealed to a substantial number of Negroes to those Negroes who were coming to count for most. Raymond Wolters: He explains it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a remarkable development of Black business, banks and insurance companies, undertakers and retail stores. Most Black businessmen did the major part of their business with blacks and promoted Black support for Negro business. Not simply as a method of increasing their profits, but as a way to advance the race. Blacks were told that they should take care of themselves. They should buy at Negroes stores, patronize Black professional men, amuse themselves at Black resorts and theaters. Food grown on Negro farms transported by Black shippers and processed in Black factories would find its way to intelligent and loyal Black customers who patronized Negro markets and restaurants. In this fashion, the race could lift itself up by its own bootstraps. Raymond Wolters: Meier has pointed to the popularity of the Buy Black strategy and the accompanying commitment to racial solidarity and self-help as evidence that many Negro businessmen and professionals were, "Either enthusiastic or lukewarm supporters of Booker T. Washington." This point has also been stressed in two generally first rate books published recently under Meier's editorial direction. In Black Ohio in the Color Line 1860 to 1915, David Gerber focused attention on a group of younger racial spokesman, who broke with an earlier generation's emphasis on individual achievement and instead advocated innovative, group oriented self-help. And in A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870 to 1930, Kenneth Kusmer also emphasized the importance of what he calls a new group of Black businessmen who relied primarily upon Negro patronage for their success. These Black leaders and spokesman were especially prominent after the sizable increase in Black populations following the so-called great migration around the time of the first World War. And Kusmer joins Meier and Gerber in suggesting that the new leaders had implicit faith in Booker Washington's philosophy of economic self-help and racial solidarity. Raymond Wolters: These new leaders with their emphasis on collective action and self-help differed from an earlier generation of leaders whose outlook was more integrationist and individualistic. But it is misleading to suggest that the new leaders sympathized with Washington rather than Du Bois. For Du Bois was as enthusiastic an advocate of the group economy as Washington himself. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois repeatedly pointed out that cooperation, unity, and group pride had been essential prerequisites for such success as had been achieved by other ethnic groups in America. And he urged Negroes to learn from their example. As early as 1899, Du Bois was urging blacks to enter business as a far sighted measure of self-defense. Just as a country can, by tariffs, build up its own economy to the point of relative self-sufficiency. So Du Bois believed that blacks could create a separate economy that would enable them to survive economically in a hostile environment. Raymond Wolters: Although Du Bois would have organized the group economy around consumer's cooperatives while Washington stressed a more conventional form of small capitalism, the economic philosophies of the two titans were far from incompatible. The important differences between the two leaders concerned protest and patronage. Washington conciliated well to do whites by endorsing disfranchisement and renouncing social equality. While Du Bois exposed white oppression and agitated for equal rights. Beyond this as already noted, Du Bois especially resented the patronage policies of what he called the Tuskegee machine. Raymond Wolters: Thus, the demonstration that many blacks in the wake of the great migration stressed the importance of buying Black is not pertinent to the question of the relative popularity of the philosophies of Washington and Du Bois. More relevant is the fact noted in Allan Spear's very good book on Black Chicago that most advocates of a separate Negro community with institutions and businesses of its own saw the need to modify the Tuskegee philosophy when it was transplanted to the North. Many accepted Booker T. Washington's ideas of racial solidarity and self-help, but rejected his emphasis on accommodation with the white community. Raymond Wolters: If some advocates of the group economy rarely had a good word for Du Bois, it was not always because as Gerber has suggested, they were taking cues from the racial values espoused by Washington. In many instances, it was because they were receiving patronage and subsidies from Washington and Tuskegee Institute. Raymond Wolters: Noting the frequency with which advocates of the group economy joined protest organizations like the NAACP, Spear concluded that by the beginning of the first World War, Chicago's Negro leaders were all Washingtonians and they were all Du Boisians. But even this formulation exaggerates the popularity of Booker T. Washington. Raymond Wolters: Washington and Du Bois both stressed the importance of self-help, but differed as to the proper strategy for dealing with whites and dissident blacks. During the second and third decades of the 20th century, most blacks were disposed more favorably toward Du Bois's emphasis on protest and agitation. That's why Du Bois emerged triumphant in his confrontation with Washington, and why the NAACP enjoyed great popularity. Raymond Wolters: Although Du Bois articulated a social philosophy that was popular among blacks, he had little of the personal charisma that generally is an indispensable attribute of leadership. He was an extraordinarily gifted writer and an effective public speaker who imposed his personality upon others through formal communication. But his personal magnetism never transcended a small group of close friends. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois was austere and dignified. He did not gamble. He drank sparingly, and he found it impossible to hail acquaintances on the street or call his friends by their first names. By his own admission, he was not what Americans call a good fellow. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois was probably correct in ascribing his aloofness to an innate shyness that was reinforced by a stern New England upbringing and by the many slights meted out to blacks in white America. Many critics nevertheless, attributed Du Bois's reserved manner to pomposity, arrogance, and irascibility. Consequently, Du Bois was widely admired, but not well liked. When his 60th birthday approached in 1928, two friends hoped to launch a public campaign for funds to assure Du Bois's economic independence and the continuation of his work. Du Bois thought it prudent to dissuade the fundraisers, explaining that although he had a few fine and loyal friends, many of those who approved his work did not like him personally, while an appalling number, "Actively dislike and hate me. You do not realize," he wrote, "How unlikely, how impossible any such manifestation of approval of me and my work is from either Black folk or white today." Raymond Wolters: Fortunately for Du Bois, his coterie of close friends included James Weldon Johnson, and J. E. Spingarn, two sociable, interracial diplomats, and the NAACP's most influential officers during the 1910s and '20s. Spingarn who served for many years as president of the NAACP and chairman of its board of directors once informed Du Bois that, "Because of the friendliness of our relations and my constant championship of you, I have been thrust forward by your friends and enemies as an intermediary or arbiter in all cases of disagreement with you." Raymond Wolters: Similarly Johnson, the NAACP's executive secretary from 1920 to '30 was able to remain on cordial terms with Du Bois on all but one occasion. For his part, Du Bois claimed Spingarn as his quote, "Nearest white friend." And looked upon Johnson as a kind of protector. As a man who understood him and whom he could trust. Raymond Wolters: Johnson and Spingarn shielded Du Bois, and enabled the editor of The Crisis to expand the scope of his leadership. In fiery prose, Du Bois relentlessly demanded better treatment for blacks. And in the process, overcame the liabilities of his personality and became an influential leader. Raymond Wolters: The alliance of Du Bois, Johnson, and Spingarn was based on a fundamental belief that blacks should seek legal redress wherever possible, and should also strive by book and periodical, by speech and appeal to put the essential facts before the American public. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois, Johnson, and Spingarn also shared pluralist convictions concerning the question of cultural dualism and ethnic identity. "American Negroes are not simply Americans or simply Negroes," Du Bois insisted, "But a distinct minority group with a unique culture and history, which they cannot escape because it is in the marrow of their bones." This duality inevitably led to identity diffusion. "Am I a Negro or am I an American? Can I be both?" Du Bois asked. Yet, eventually he had to decide and he chose what is today called cultural pluralism. As he saw it, blacks wished neither to Africanize America nor to bleach their Negro blood, but simply to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American. "We want to be Americans, full fledged Americans with all the rights of American citizens." He insisted. But that was not all Negroes must fight for equal opportunity and also proudly develop their unique talents. Thus, Du Bois was a fastidious Black Brahman, a connoisseur of the best of Western culture, a devoted chronicler of African contributions to civilization, and also an exhorter, urging Black Americans to develop their own special talent so that as he once put it, among the gaily colored banners that deck the broad ramparts of civilization, there will be one that is uncompromisingly Black. Raymond Wolters: Johnson and Spingarn's thought was similar to that of Du Bois, although not identical. Johnson believed that blacks eventually would meld into a fully unified national culture. In the process, they would lose their racial identity. But Johnson hoped that Black Americans would first develop special qualities that were generally recognized as valuable contributions to the larger society. Otherwise, they would suffer the fate of the blacks of ancient Egypt who gave their best to advance civilization, but in the end, lost their identity and had been denied credit for their contributions. Raymond Wolters: Johnson also emphasized the importance of Black achievement as necessary to repair a damaged group psychology and to pave the way toward eventual assimilation. Similarly, Spingarn knew that many blacks considered cultural nationalism for the American Negro the most important thing to aim at today. Accordingly through annual literary prizes given in his wife's name and through his work as an editor at Harcourt, Brace & Company, Spingarn fostered Black literature and became a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance. Raymond Wolters: Having triumphed over Washington and having established good working relations with the most influential officers of the NAACP, Du Bois in the 1920s was at the apex of his career. Yet in 1934, he abdicated his position of eminence and resigned from the association. Raymond Wolters: This resignation resulted from Du Bois's failure to reorient the NAACP program. And from a protracted controversy with Walter White, a controversy that involved both a clash of personalities and the conflict of ideologies. White, who in 1930 succeeded Johnson as the NAACP's executive secretary, was far less concerned than Du Bois with questions of cultural dualism and ethnic identity. White discounted the importance of racial cohesion, and stress simply the need to end discrimination against individuals. Once that was accomplished, white assumed that Black Americans would speedily move into the mainstream and disperse throughout the society. He was convinced that the purpose of a protest organization was to protest, and that his job was to expose racial discrimination wherever it appeared. He summed up his strategy on one occasion when he said it was his job to get the facts on discrimination and then to protest morning, noon, and night to those in authority. Only those who continue to raise a racket in season and out are going to escape being given the rawest of deals. Raymond Wolters: Above all else. White protested against lynching. One of his earliest memories was of the infamous Atlanta riot of 1906 and the white family armed with pistols to protect their home from invasion. This searing experience left its mark on White's soul. And in later years, he often seem preoccupied with mob violence. He rose to national fame as the intrepid NAACP investigator of lynchings, where he made good use of his fair skin, blue eyes, blonde hair, and general ability to pass as a white reporter interviewing members of the mob. One of his friends in the 1930s recalled that whatever the topic of discussion, White generally turned the subject to lynching and famous instances of mob violence Raymond Wolters: Beyond his preoccupation with agitation against discrimination and for anti-lynching laws, White developed extravagant tastes for fine food, good potables, frequent revelry, beautiful women, and famous company. In the early 1930s, he left the Harlem apartment he had shared with his Negro wife of 20 years and moved in with a celebrated white journalist whom he would later marry. Small of stature with a ready smile and an affable manner, White made friends quickly and moved easily in white society. Raymond Wolters: Noting that White had more white companions and friends than colored, Du Bois concluded that the NAACP's executive officer goes where he will in New York City and naturally meets no color line. for the simple insufficient reason that he isn't colored. Raymond Wolters: Even NAACP president Spingarn warned White, "That hundreds of Negroes think you are really a white man. And urge caution so that your opposition to segregation not seem to spring from a desire to associate with white people." Many blacks believed there was no chance to get the NAACP's anti-lynching bill pass a certain Southern filibuster in the Senate. They were right. And they suspected that White stressed the issue because it afforded the opportunity for frequent conferences with senators Robert Wagner and Edward Costigan, his sponsors of the NAACP's anti-lynching bill for occasional consultation with President and Mrs. Roosevelt. And for collaboration with prominent artists, writers, and celebrities whose cooperation White enlisted in the campaign for an anti-lynching law. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois had never approved of White's selection as secretary of the NAACP. In 1929, Du Bois had written a strongly worded protest against the utter viciousness of White's evaluation of the work of two fellow officers. Two years later, Du Bois succeeded in gaining the rescission of a directive to the effect that the secretary is the executive officer of this association and all employees and officers receiving a salary from the NAACP shall be subject to his authority. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois also used his position on the NAACP nominations committee to secure the appointment of several members of the board of directors who he thought were immune to White's influence. And in 1931, Du Bois proposed that a larger element of democratic control be attained by transferring to the branches certain powers then exercised by Walter White and the national office staff. On several occasions and once in White's presence, Du Bois frankly told the board of directors that Walter White was not the proper person to head the NAACP. Raymond Wolters: As long as Du Bois's journal The Crisis was financially, self-sufficient Du Bois was able to proceed with only a modicum of supervision from the NAACP. But Crisis revenues declined sharply during the depression and the journal could not survive without an annual subsidy of about $5,000. As secretary of the association, White naturally bore the responsibility for fundraising, an activity for which he was well-suited by virtue of his gregarious personality and his persistent work habits. Raymond Wolters: White received a seat on The Crisis editorial board in return for this event that kept the journal afloat, and Du Bois later recalled that this created, "An impossible position for me, and a difficult one for White." Raymond Wolters: With so much of his own energy devoted to securing money, White continually tried to persuade Du Bois to help out with fundraising. Du Bois however, had long believed that raising money was not a job for which I was fitted. It called for a friendliness of approach and a knowledge of human nature and an adaptability, which I did not have. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois's specialty was analysis. He had a knowledge of the Negro problem, and the ability to express his thoughts clearly, and a logical method of expression. In return for the NAACP subsidy, Du Bois proposed to write more and to lecture more. Raymond Wolters: To placate the importunate White however, Du Bois promise to do four weeks of fundraising for the association. Yet White wrote, he was never able to arrange a schedule which met with Dr. Du Bois's approval and the work was never done, a situation that led White to complain angrily that during the incumbency of the present secretary, the editor of The Crisis has never made one offer to help the NAACP. Raymond Wolters: Thus, during the early years of the depression, there was an intense personal feud between the NAACP's two ranking officers. To his friend, Charles Houston, White confided, "I'm just waiting for a chance to nail Du Bois." Proceeding more openly early in 1934, Du Bois penned the letter that was published in the Negro press stating that the NAACP needed fundamental and complete reorganization from bottom to top and announcing that he was ready to unite with any persons who think as I do in a determined effort to rescue this organization and prepare it for a new and worthy future. After conferring with several sympathizers, Du Bois concluded that his attitude was widespread and he thought he would be able to oust White. Raymond Wolters: Du Bois said that he was mad way through and it was not going to be caught napping. But he was also 66 years old in 1934, an age that he recalled 26 years later. "I thought to be old at that time." He thought it was time to retire to, "My ivory tower and devote myself to study and give up propaganda." For this reason, and also because he wanted to ease the burden on the NAACP's depression strain finances, Du Bois while remaining as editor of The Crisis at one fourth his usual salary had taken a position as professor of sociology at Atlanta University. Thus, as the plan to reorganize the NAACP took shape, Du Bois was away in Georgia and was not able to keep in close touch with developments in the national office. Raymond Wolters: On the whole, Du Bois was well satisfied with his work at Atlanta. Where most of his teaching was confined to seminars on topics such as the New Deal and the Negro and Marxism and the Negro problem. And where he was given time to put the finishing touches on his Magnum Opus Black Reconstruction. And to begin the study, the systematic study of Marxism that would have great influence on his later life. Raymond Wolters: Understandably, Du Bois welcomed the opportunity to follow pursuits more in keeping with his scholarly tastes. Having been a major protagonist in the important racial controversies for more than 30 years, Du Bois thought he deserved an opportunity for rest and repose. Raymond Wolters: This ambivalence, the conviction on the one hand that the NAACP's leadership had to be changed if the association was to remain effective and the simultaneous inclination because of temperament, age, and geographical location to retreat to his study in time of a storm, was perhaps the central weakness that ultimately undermined Du Bois' campaign to oust White. Raymond Wolters: The personal hostility between Du Bois and White was aggravated by a disagreement as to the proper policy for the NAACP during the Depression. White believed the NAACP should persist in its attack on white discrimination. If the association continued its publicity, agitation, lobbying, and legal cases, White believed the walls of segregation eventually would crumble, and individual Negroes would integrate and assimilate into the mass of the American people.