W. E. B. Du Bois & African American Contributions to World War I

Kelly Therese Pollock  0:00  
This is Unsung History, the podcast where we discuss people and events in American history that haven't always received a lot of attention. I'm your host, Kelly Therese Pollock. I'll start each episode with a brief introduction to the topic, and then talk to someone who knows a lot more than I do. Be sure to subscribe to Unsung History on your favorite podcasting app so you never miss an episode. And please, tell your friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, maybe even strangers to listen too

On this episode, we are discussing WEB Du Bois and his attempts to make sense of World War I and the participation of Black soldiers in the war. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. After his father deserted the family, DuBois was raised by his mother, Mary Silvina, whose family was part of the small free Black population of the town. After graduating from high school, Du Bois attended historically Black Fisk University in Nashville, from 1885 to 1888, where he first experienced southern racism. After graduating from Fisk, Du Bois studied for another undergraduate degree at Harvard University, graduating with a BA cum laude in 1890, followed by a Master of Arts in 1891, and a PhD in history in 1895, making Du Bois the first Black person to earn a PhD at Harvard, with a dissertation entitled "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638 to 1870." Starting in 1897, Du Bois was a professor at Atlanta University, where he wrote prolifically, including his widely influential 1903 publication, "The Souls of Black Folks." In 1905, Dubois led the creation of the Niagara Movement, in opposition to the accommodationist stance of Booker T. Washington. The Niagara Movement's Declaration of Principles stated, "We refuse to allow the impression to remain that the Negro American, assents to inferiority, is submissive under oppression and apologetic before insults. Persistent manly agitation is the way to liberty. And toward this goal, the Niagara Movement has started and asks the cooperation of all men of all races." In 1909, in response to horrific racial violence, in an August, 1908 riot in Springfield, Illinois, a group of white liberals and African Americans, including Du Bois, formed the NAACP with a mission to eliminate race prejudice and ensure political and educational equality. In 1910, Du Bois, as the NAACP's Director of Publicity and Research, established its publication, "The Crisis," which he also edited. By 1920, the circulation of "The Crisis" had reached 100,000. On June 28, 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated by a Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip. A month later, on July 28, after diplomacy had failed, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia. By August 5, Germany, Russia, Luxembourg, France, Belgium and Great Britain joined the fray. On September 5, Russia, France and Great Britain signed the Treaty of London, becoming the Allied Powers. In May, 1915, while the United States tried to avoid entering the war, Du Bois, who had spent time studying in Germany while in graduate school, wrote a piece for "The Atlantic" called, "The African Roots of War," in which he argued, "The present world war is then the result of jealousies engendered by the recent rise of armed national associations of labor and capital, whose aim is the exploitation of the wealth of the world, mainly outside the European circle of nations." In 1916, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection against the Republican candidate, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Charles Evans Hughes, with Wilson's campaign touting the slogan, "He kept us out of war." Wilson won the election and was inaugurated to his second term on Sunday, March 4, 1917. By April 6, 1917, Congress had declared war on the German Empire, after Germany's repeated attacks on American passenger and merchant ships. During the course of the war, over 350,000 African American soldiers joined the effort. But the US Armed Forces remained segregated. Civil rights groups fought the segregation to no avail. In Iowa, African Americans trained at Fort Des Moines, with more than 600 of them commissioned as captains and lieutenants in October, 1917. Echoing Frederick Douglass' call during the Civil War for Black men to, "Rise up in the dignity of our manhood and show by our own right arms that we are worthy to be free men," some civil rights activists encouraged Black men to fight in the Great War as a vehicle for gaining respect and equality. Despite his usually pacifist stance, Du Bois was swept up in the same hope, writing, controversially, in the 1918 edition of The Crisis, "We of the colored races have no ordinary interest in the outcome. That which the German power represents today spells death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for equality, freedom and democracy. Let us not hesitate. Let us, while this war lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. We make no ordinary sacrifice, but we make it gladly and willingly with our eyes lifted to the hills." Many of the African American soldiers in World War I ended up serving in the support roles that the army thought them best suited. But in late 1917, they did create two all Black infantry units. The 92nd Infantry Division was sent unprepared into fierce fighting, but fought admirably, if unsuccessfully. The 93rd Infantry Division, which fought as part of France's Fourth Army, produced two Medal of Honor recipients, 75 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 527 Croix de Guerre medals. Despite their heroic fighting, though, the 93rd was discriminated against both by the army and after they returned home. And they were slandered by the white officers. In December, 1918, Du Bois, with the backing of the NAACP, left for France for three months to gather the stories of the Black soldiers. While there, he also organized a Pan African Congress during the Paris Peace Talks. After returning to the United States, Du Bois asked veterans to send him any materials they had, that he could use to tell the story of the Black soldiers. Veterans responded, sending him military records, letters, and diaries. Du Bois spent the next few decades trying and failing to tell the story of Black soldiers in World War I. In the end, he wrote 800 some pages, constituting 21 chapters of a book he called, "The Black Man and the Wounded World," drawing on the vast archive he had acquired. Over time, Du Bois realized his mistake in publishing "Close Ranks," writing in 1940, "I felt for a moment during the war, that I could be without reservation, a patriotic American. I'm less sure now than then, of the soundness of this war attitude." In the end, despite his prolific writing, and speaking about the war, and many other topics, Du Bois couldn't bring together a coherent narrative to make sense of the Great War, and of the place of Black soldiers in it. He never published "The Black Man and the Wounded World." On August 27, 1963, at the age of 95, and as the author of 21 published books, WEB Du Bois died in Ghana, where he had lived for the last few years of his life as a citizen of that country, and where he is now buried. Joining me now to discuss Du Bois and his relationship with World War I, is Dr. Chad L. Williams, the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History, and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University, and the author of, "The Wounded World: WEB Du Bois and the First World War."

Hi Professor Williams, thanks so much for joining me today.

Dr. Chad L. Williams  13:17  
Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Kelly Therese Pollock  13:19  
Yes, I am quite excited to talk to you about this book that you've written. I want to start, you talk a little bit in your acknowledgments about how you first got into this story. But I wonder if you could talk to me a little bit about way back 23 years ago, when you first started, first encountered the research that would become this book?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  13:38  
Wow. 23 years. So I remember it very vividly. I was doing research for my dissertation, which would become my first book, "Torchbearers of Democracy," and was at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, looking at the papers of WEB Du Bois, which are archived there. And I'd seen a reference in the finding aid to Du Bois' World War I materials. Didn't know what it was, there was no description. So I quite honestly didn't expect much. I go to the library, and the archivist gives me six microfilm reels. So at this point, I'm really excited and really intrigued. So I load the first reel and kind of discover this unfinished and unpublished manuscript by WEB Du Bois on the Black experience in World War I, that turned out to be over 800 pages, worked on it for over 20 years, titled it, "The Black Man and the Wounded World." It would have been one of his most significant works of history. And it was never completed. And to my astonishment, no other historian had talked about it. So really, from that moment, I was, dare I say obsessed with with telling this story, with learning more about this remarkable book that he spent so much time working on, but also trying to understand Du Bois' relationship to World War I, why it mattered to him, and ultimately why World War I mattered to the broader struggle for Black freedom and democracy in the 20th century.

Kelly Therese Pollock  15:10  
So your first book was about, as you mentioned, Black soldiers in World War I. Could you talk a little bit about what that experience was like for Black soldiers? What what did that look like during World War I?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  15:21  
So approximately 380,000 African American soldiers served in the United States Army, in the First World War. The army was completely segregated. 200,000 Black soldiers served overseas in France. The vast majority of Black troops served as laborers in the services of supply doing all the ugly, unglamorous work of the war, loading and unloading ships, digging ditches, laying railroad tracks, burying dead bodies. That was how the military envisioned kind of the quote unquote, natural role and natural place of Black men in the army, but there were two Black combat divisions, and there were also Black officers, as well. So even though the army was completely segregated, white supremacy and institutionalized racism was every day fact of life for Black soldiers in the army, there were still tremendous moments of heroism. And that's why WEB Du Bois wanted to write this history, to demonstrate that in spite of the really horrific racism of the United States Army, transported from the United States, to France, Black soldiers and Black people more broadly, throughout the entire African diaspora, played a significant part in the history of the war, and ultimately, were instrumental in the Allied victory.

Kelly Therese Pollock  16:44  
Yeah. So early on in the war, Du Bois is the editor of "The Crisis." And he writes this essay, this column that, you know, would haunt him, as you say, the rest of his life, "Close Ranks." Could you talk a little bit about that, and sort of what his feeling was at that moment that led him to write that?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  17:07  
Yeah, I think first, I mean, to take a little step back, it's important to really understand why Du Bois supported the First World War in the first place. DuBois was a pacifist, at least in in theory, he was against war. But he saw the war as an opportunity for African Americans to stake claim to their citizenship as American citizens, but also expand democracy on a national scale and on a global scale throughout the entire African diaspora, as well. He had deep reverence for the Black military tradition, going back to the American Revolution, certainly through the Civil War. So he felt that the Great War, as it was being characterized at the time, would be a similar moment for African Americans to expand freedom and democracy for themselves, but also to reconcile the double consciousness that he famously talks about, in his book, "The Souls of Black Folk:" this sense of twoness that Black people have experienced of being Black, and being American, at the same time and trying to reconcile those two warring ideals, as he described them. He felt World War I  was going to be a pivotal moment in that struggle for for African American identity. And he encourages African Americans to support their country, to support the war. And this is why he ultimately writes probably the most controversial editorial of his career, in the July, 1918 issue of The Crisis, "Close Ranks." He encourages African Americans to set aside their special grievances, and close ranks with their fellow white Americans and the Allies that are fighting for democracy. And he was heavily criticized for it. It was an editorial decision, that, as you said, ultimately, would haunt him for the rest of his life. And he tried to make sense of this really conflicted moment, by writing the history of the war and trying to make make sense of it as only he could.

Kelly Therese Pollock  19:14  
One of the things that's so interesting about Du Bois, is that he is going to all these different places, both around the United States, but really around the globe, in his career, and is shifting his worldview, incorporating things that he's getting from these different places. He had before the war, been in Germany as a student. And then he goes after the war to France, you know, and he's looking at all these different places. Could you talk a little bit about that and how his his global travels really influenced the way he saw everything, but you know, especially reflected on his views on World War I?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  19:53  
Yeah, I think that's a great point. DuBois was truly a global citizen, a citizen of the world as he later characterized himself. He was also a global thinker, as well. His time in Germany, as a graduate student, was very influential in shaping his ideas, his his personality, his his tastes in literature, music, a whole host of other areas. He spent time, as I write about in my book, in France, immediately after the armistice, during the peace conference. He's meeting with Black soldiers and officers literally on the front lines along the western front in the camps. So he wanted to experience the world that he later travels, to other parts of Europe, Russia, Germany, again, in 1936, as I write about in the book, very controversially. He mentioned he visits Africa as well. So all of these different global experiences shape his ideas about what he described as the problem of the 20th century, the problem of the color line, and also inform his ideas about the First World War itself, or which he ultimately comes to see as a global tragedy, right. He titles his book, "The Black Man and the Wounded World." And he's trying to make sense of just what the war meant for the entire world, and just how it was wounded in terms of the violence, in terms of white supremacy, in terms of empire and economic exploitation, really wanting to make sense of just what type of world the Great War created.

Kelly Therese Pollock  21:36  
So Du Bois is described as both a historian and a sociologist, in various times and various places. And he, of course, was trained, his PhD is in history. And so it's so striking that he decides that he's going to write the history of this war immediately after. You know, that's, that's not something, at least nowadays that you very often see historians do. Could you talk a little bit about that, that that tension, and, you know, his his training, what he's trying to do, and how difficult it is to look at something, to write about something in the immediate aftermath?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  22:12  
Yeah, the historians and sociologists are always in a tug of war over claiming Du Bois. But in some ways, it's a it's a kind of false argument, because the way that Du Bois approached history as well as sociology were so intertwined. He really viewed the two as as interconnected, and shaped his his approach to both sociology and history. So he didn't really make that that clear distinction. It was really reflective of the moment in which he was trained, in which history was approached as a social science, and kind of the rigorous collection and articulation of factual evidence. So this is what he initially envisioned in writing the history of Black people in the war. In some ways, when he goes to France, immediately after the armistice, he's conducting sociological fieldwork, kind of ethnographic research, if you will, and talking directly with Black soldiers and veterans and getting their stories, collecting their documents, which he continues to do once he returns back to the United States. But without question, he faced an incredible challenge about writing about a subject matter, that was still very much the present, and that he was very much a part of. DuBois was not able, as I argue, in my book, to have the type of historical distance that he did from other subject matters that he wrote about, like the Civil War and Reconstruction Era that he did with the First World War. And ultimately, as I argue, that close proximity to the history of the war and his very close, personal and conflicted relationships to it prevented him from being able to complete his his massive book. 

Kelly Therese Pollock  24:02  
And the personal relationships with the veterans of the wars seems to also be, so causes him a lot of guilt along the way, as he's not able to finish this book. Could you talk a little bit about that, about his, his connections, the soldiers really entrusted him with a lot of their stories, their information, their documentation from the war?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  24:26  
Yeah, when I initially started writing the book, I really wanted to make the story about them, because they were so committed, so invested in trying to tell their story, and using Du Bois as the vehicle to tell their story. But ultimately, the story is is about Du Bois, and his relationship with many of these men, who he formed very close personal bonds to. One of whom, Adam Patterson, who I talked about extensively in the book, was initially going to be one of his his co authors, and they believed that DuBois was the ideal person to write the history of the war and to tell their story accurately, and without any sugarcoating, as well. And Du Bois internalized that. He took that obligation very seriously. And ultimately, that's one of the many tragedies of the story that I tell, that DuBois was not able to finish the book, and was also very selfish and very egotistical in holding on to the materials, refusing to return them, believing that they were best suited in his hands. And ultimately, their their history would be, would be left for for someone else to tell. And that's ultimately what I what I try and do in my book.

Kelly Therese Pollock  25:43  
Yeah, yeah. So you were just talking about that he's selfish in a way in the in several moments in telling or trying to write this book. You talk a little bit at the end about how easy it is with Du Bois to slip into hagiography. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, about the difficulty of taking this such an important, amazing figure and, and writing about, essentially his biggest failure?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  26:12  
Yeah, I was very hesitant to, to be perfectly honest with you. Du Bois is such a monumental figure, such a revered figure in Black Studies, in particular. And it was a daunting endeavor to take on. But I felt a sense of obligation to the story, but also, to understand DuBois in all of his complexity. Certainly, we should revere him for his genius, for all of his contributions that he made, but also keeping in sight his fundamental humanity, and using his really long, complicated relationship with the history of the First World War. And ultimately, his failed book was an opportunity to explore DuBois in all of his genius, as well as in all of his flaws, and to think about him in terms of failure, right. That's something that we really do not associate with, with Du Bois in any way, shape, or form. But I found that to be incredibly generative, and to think about the ways in which Du Bois reckoned with failure, the failure of World War I itself, his failure to complete his book, but ultimately how that failure shaped him, allowed him to evolve, and radicalized him in in many ways, right? How he goes from supporting World War I and encouraging Black people to close ranks in 1918. By the 1950s, he's a radical peace activist, and the federal government is ready to put him in jail for his anti war activity. So it's really remarkable evolution, a way to understand Du Bois in the full scope and scale of his life, but also, as I said, in all of its complexity and all of his his fundamental humanity as well.

Kelly Therese Pollock  28:07  
It's interesting to see him later, as he's reflecting on the "Close Ranks" essay, say very starkly, "I was wrong." And that's such a an unusual thing, I think, for people to be willing to say, and it's so feels so important to understanding him and his journey.

Dr. Chad L. Williams  28:25  
Absolutely. And DuBois was someone who very rarely admitted that he was wrong. As I said, he had a monumental ego. He would find excuse after excuse to not admit failure, to not admit that he was wrong. So to find multiple moments in his life, where he's reflecting on the war, the decisions that he made and admitting that he was wrong, admitting, his his shame, his guilt, and it's just so striking to hear Du Bois use that type of language to describe himself, and really spoke to just what an incredible, incredibly important moment World War I was, for him. What a traumatic moment, what a wounding moment, it was for Du Bois in his life, and how it ultimately shaped him in the subsequent decades.

Kelly Therese Pollock  29:18  
This is also of course, a story of how difficult research is, of how expensive research is to do. And time after time after time, he's trying to get funding for this project, which he sees as central and important and funding agencies just don't want to fund him. Could you talk a little bit about that and how important that is for the stories that we have in the world are, you know, in large part dependent on people being willing to fund those stories?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  29:48  
Yeah, I really credit David Levering Lewis, Du Bois' biographer, for encouraging me to really think about the relationship between Du Bois and other Black scholars and white philanthropy. Many of the works that Du Bois and other Black scholars produced were dependent on on white support, particularly foundation and philanthropic support. So Du Bois not receiving the financial support that he believed he needed to complete his history of the war was really reflective of the challenges that that Black scholars have faced, and quite frankly, the challenges that Black scholars continue to face today, in finding adequate support for our work, as well as getting foundations, philanthropies, organizations, to understand the type of work that we're doing. Du Bois believed that Black people needed to be at the center of the work that he was producing as historical actors. And in the context of the times, in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, that was an incredibly radical proposition to make and something that most white philanthropies were very hesitant to support. So he did struggle to get financial support. But ultimately, it was I as I argue in my book, Du Bois' own decisions which prevented him from completing the book. He did receive some financial support that he decided to focus on on other endeavors. So I really kind of chronicle and explore the the multitude of choices Du Bois made over the years, how there were many factors that were at play in him trying to write and ultimately not being able to finish his book. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it was Du Bois himself, which was the biggest challenge.

Kelly Therese Pollock  31:42  
Could you reflect a little bit on this? It's such a meta project, right? Like you spending a longtime writing a long book about someone who's trying to write a, spending a long time trying to write what would have been a really, really long book, if he had finished it. Can you just reflect on that a little bit? And you know, did, were there times that you wonder if you would fall into the same trap that he did, and what how that what that made you reflect on yourself, as a researcher, as a writer?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  32:11  
There were there were many moments that could end up in not finishing my book. I mean, in many ways, it is an unconventional book. I wrote a book about someone writing a book. But I really wanted to think about the larger story within that. I could have wrote a very traditional, I guess, intellectual history. But the story was much more more broad than that. And it's, it was a challenge. It was a challenge to think about how I wanted to structure the book, the type of audience that I wanted the book to have. But ultimately, that was a struggle that was that was worthwhile. And I believe that the amount of time that it took to, you know, ponder over the book, in my mind to think about the structure of it, to think about the writing of it to, to polish it, to make it readable and accessible was was ultimately worthwhile. And DuBois was certainly in the back of my mind, as I was, you know, finishing the book and thinking about, you know, what, just what type of book I wanted this to be.

Kelly Therese Pollock  33:22  
Could you talk a little bit about the the sources you were able to use, because there's there's such a wealth of material that you're able to put into this book. So what are the various places, sources that you were able to draw on?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  33:34  
My main body of research is Du Bois' manuscript and his own research materials. As I said, the manuscript that he ultimately never finished, over 800 pages long. Just an incredible document, some of the chapters complete, some incomplete, but just rich with information and insight about Du Bois, and all the research materials that he collected over the years, military documents, diaries, letters from soldiers, photographs. It's just really an unrivaled archive of which is physically located at Fisk University, in their library Special Collections Department. I also made use of the WEB Du Bois papers at the University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Amherst, which are very conveniently digitized now, that which made my research much easier. Also looking at a number of other documents related to the Black experience in the war. So I wanted to first and foremost make full use of Du Bois' own materials to really center his voice, as well. But I did supplement that with other archival materials, both primary and secondary sources.

Kelly Therese Pollock  34:51  
Well, there's a lot more we could go into, but I want people to read this book. So can you tell people how they can get a copy of the book?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  34:57  
The book should be available at your local bookstore or wherever books are sold, obviously, online, Amazon. Please, I encourage you to support your local independent bookstore. So, bookshop.org. So yeah, so it's it's available wherever, wherever books are sold.

Kelly Therese Pollock  35:18  
And it's an incredible read. I really enjoyed it. And I feel like I got such a more complete picture of DuBois. So I really appreciated that. Is there anything else you wanted to make sure we talked about?

Dr. Chad L. Williams  35:34  
I think this is such an important story in terms of our understanding of DuBois, but also understanding and reckoning with just the the meaning of race and democracy today. The way the legacies of the war continue to resonate today, how many of the same struggles that DuBois was engaged in and committed to addressing in his life are still with us today, and I believe this the story and my book, really allows us to think about the wounded world, and what type of world the war created and the type of world that we are still living in today.

Kelly Therese Pollock  36:17  
Yeah, I think it's, there's been a, a theme of several episodes that I've done of, you know, Frederick Douglass telling Black soldiers in Civil War, you know, you should fight and then you'll be seen, as you know, full citizens of the country. And, you know, again, in World War I and seeing this, it's really a somewhat disappointing picture of what the country is now that we're still fighting so many of the same fights, still struggling in so many of the same ways.

Dr. Chad L. Williams  36:45  
Right. And that tension over over loyalty and patriotism and citizenship is still very much an issue today. You know, what does it mean for Black people and Black soldiers in particular, to fight for their country, to support a country that doesn't always support you, to be loyal to a country that is not always loyal to you, that does not respect your citizenship, and oftentimes, your very humanity, and those are issues that Black people are still wrestling with.

Kelly Therese Pollock  36:45  
Yeah. Professor Williams, thank you so much for speaking with me. It's a tremendous book, and I'm really thrilled to have been able to speak with you about it.

Dr. Chad L. Williams  37:13  
Thank you very much.

Teddy  37:46  
Thanks for listening to Unsung History. Please subscribe to Unsung History on your favorite podcasting app. You can find the sources used for this episode, and a full episode transcript @UnsungHistorypodcast.com. To the best of our knowledge, all audio and images used by Unsung History are in the public domain or are used with permission. You can find us on Twitter or Instagram @Unsung__History, or on Facebook @UnsungHistorypodcast. To contact us with questions, corrections, praise, or episode suggestions, please email Kelly@UnsungHistorypodcast.com. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate, review, and tell everyone you know. Bye!

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