The Negro in the South; His Economic Progress in Relation to his Moral and Religious Development

by W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington

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Genres: History, Religion, Sociology, African American

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

In 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced 'doo-boyz') was born in Massachusetts. He attended Fisk College in Nashville, then earned his BA in 1890 and his MS in 1891 from Harvard. Du Bois studied at the University of Berlin, then earned his doctorate in history from Harvard in 1894. He taught economics and history at Atlanta University from 1897-1910. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) made his name, in which he urged black Americans to stand up for their educational and economic rights. Du Bois was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and edited the NAACP's official journal, "Crisis," from 1910 to 1934. Du Bois turned "Crisis" into the foremost black literary journal. The black nationalist expanded his interests to global concerns, and is called the "father of Pan-Africanism" for organizing international black congresses.

Although he used some religious metaphor and expressions in some of his books and writings, Du Bois called himself a freethinker. In "On Christianity," a posthumously published essay, Du Bois critiqued the black church: "The theology of the average colored church is basing itself far too much upon 'Hell and Damnation'—upon an attempt to scare people into being decent and threatening them with the terrors of death and punishment. We are still trained to believe a good deal that is simply childish in theology. The outward and visible punishment of every wrong deed that men do, the repeated declaration that anything can be gotten by anyone at any time by prayer." Du Bois became a member of the Communist Party and officially repudiated his U.S. citizenship at the end of his life, dying in his adopted country of Ghana. D. 1963.

More: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stori...

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Reviews

[Christine Norvell]

"Two questions may be asked of any group of human beings: first, How do they earn their living, and secondly, What is their attitude toward life?”—DuBois

Washington and DuBois yearn for progress yet are keenly motivated in different ways. Their lectures are perfect slices of their lives in 1907.

[Andrew]

Four short lectures from c. 1900 - 2 by Booker T; 2 by WEBD.


Most notable about Booker T is his tactical admiration for white civilization (going so far as to see the silver lining in slavery - the chance to shed the savagery of Africa and begin to learn from the white man). He also expresses a patient and non-threatening desire to lift the negro race up to the level of the white in due time, and makes a strong connection between good honest work and dignity and success (and the necessity of erasing the negative attitudes towards manual labor caused by slavery).

DuBois's first essay recounts the South's rejection of the industrial revolution in favor of King Cotton, and the New South's process of catching up with the North after the Civil War. DuBois takes a much more negative, angry view of Redemption / Jim Crow, especially the stifling of the 15th Amendment and the re-establishment of slavery in all but name (peonage/sharecropping). Sees strength in urban migration and "Group Economy" - closed economic circle of Negros, largely independent from whites. Sees the south stuck between a desire to industrialize, and a refusal to allow the blacks to become a viable, educated working class...

[Miles Smith]

Dual lectures given by Dubois and Washington in 1907. Illustrative of their differences.

[Neal Marcus]

More a story of the progress of the slaves in”the land of the free” in a cultural “racial aristocracy”!