I kept silent out of respect for those who worked so hard to honor Great Barrington\u2019s native son, W. E. B. DuBois, including the Gunns, Skip Meade and Esther Dozier. For the volunteer artists who painted the DuBois mural, not once but twice. For Carr Hardware for their generous support of the project. And Railroad Street Youth for their sponsorship.
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\nBut I\u2019m disturbed by what seems a case of mistaken identity. A recent letter in the Eagle and Record celebrates the new DuBois mural, so very happy that we finally have \u201ca community-friendly DuBois.\u201d
\nDuBois never tolerated fools. And considering he was an Einstein-like genius, he was always surrounded by fools like you and me. And he was fired many times for his arrogance and obstinacy.
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\nThose who fought against honoring DuBois, however much they distorted American radicalism, were closer to the truth than those who celebrate an illusion. They, at least, knew they were dealing with a radical, not some pre-Obama middle-of-the-road Democrat.
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\nDuBois was a world-class historian, the father of sociology, the first proponent of a systematic program for black power, and a novelist. But, above all, he was a tireless revolutionary.
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\nHe wrote in 1944: \u201cI am a socialist and have been for many years and that creed means to me that the wealth of a nation like this should be increasingly socialized; that the primary resources, the capital goods and machinery should to an increasing extent be owned by all the people and not by private persons for private profit \u2026\u201d
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\nHis doctoral thesis revealed how thoroughly slavery was ingrained in both the economic and social life of the American colonies. His 1915 study, \u201cThe Negro,\u201d estimates the number of slaves brought in chains to America:
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\n\u201cDunbar estimates that nearly 900,00 came to America in the sixteenth century, 2,750,00 in the seventeenth, 7,000,000 in the eighteenth, and over 4,000,000 in the nineteenth, perhaps 15,000,000 in all. Probably every slave imported represented on average five corpses in Africa or on the high seas.\u201d That\u2019s a holocaust of 75 million black souls.
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\nHis groundbreaking \u201cThe Philadelphia Negro\u201d unstintingly examined the ignorance, poverty, and crime that marked the lives of his Philadelphia compatriots. Urging hard work and responsibility, he nevertheless unflinchingly put their condition into context:
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\n\u201cIf in the hey-day of the greatest of the world\u2019s civilizations, it is possible for one people ruthlessly to steal another, drag them helpless across the water, enslave them, debauch them, and then slowly murder them by economic and social exclusion until they disappear from the face of the earth \u2013 if the consummation of such a crime be possible in the twentieth century, then our civilization is in vain and the republic is a mockery and a farce.\u201d
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\nDuBois was always dealing with folks who wanted him to be a more compliant, \u201ccommunity-friendly\u201d version of himself.
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\n In 1910, he wrote:
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\n\u201cSome good friends of the cause we represent fear agitation \u2026 They add, \u2018Agitation is destructive or at best, negative.\u2019 \u2026 The function of this organization is tell this nation the crying evil of race prejudice. It is a hard duty but a necessary one \u2026 It is Pain; Pain is not good but it is necessary \u2026 Aggravation calls for Agitation in order that Remedy may be found.\u201d
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\nHe wrote in 1914:
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\n\u201cI do not believe any people had so many \u2018friends\u2019 as the American Negro today. He has nothing but \u2018friends\u2019 and may God deliver him from most of them, for they are like to lynch his soul.\u201d
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\nYou want the \u201ccommunity-friendly DuBois,\u201d you\u2019ve got the wrong dead black man. Try Booker T. Washington. Washington argued that agitating for social equality was foolish; and made alliances with powerful whites believing that gradualism would best serve his people. Washington accepted what he believed were their limitations, and called for the recognition \u201cthat we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour.\u201d
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\nTo DuBois, this policy was surrender and contributed \u201cto the disenfranchisement of the Negro;\u201d the legal creation of \u2026 civil inferiority for the Negro;\u201d and \u201cthe steady withdrawal of aid\u201d to Negro-controlled institutions, especially the black colleges.
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\nDuBois was looking not for friends but for allies of all colors and creeds in the struggles for equality, for social and economic justice, and against all forms of colonialism. Were he alive today, he\u2019d be fighting to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, railing against Obama\u2019s bailout of Wall Street and agitating for the replacement of capitalism with an economic system based on equity not greed.
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\nLike all of us, DuBois made his share of mistakes: most grievously believing the propaganda that Russia had created a socialist utopia.
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\nPerhaps it\u2019s time to read and study the man himself. Then honor his brilliant scholarship, accept his crankiness, and celebrate a lifetime of radical activism that led to his indictment by the U.S. government and his decision to live and die in Ghana.
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\nThe Berkshire Record, Thursday August 12, 2010. \u00a9 Mickey Friedman. All rights reserved.
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