 | Paul Gilroy |
In his 1903 book "The Souls of Black Folk," author W.E.B. DuBois predicted that "the problem of the 20th century [would be] the problem of the color-line."
"We approach the centenary of 'The Souls of Black Folk' anxiously, amidst great turbulence in geo-political affairs," said Paul Gilroy, professor of sociology and chair of the Department of African American Studies. "The opportunity to reflect on that landmark book and to engage it in relation to our own circumstances seems especially valuable at the moment because it affords a chance to consider the distinctiveness and worldliness of DuBois' thinking which has something to offer our own predicament in the face of globalization and of resurgent U.S. imperial power."
Titled "The World and America: DuBois' 'Souls of Black Folk' 100 Years Later," Gilroy's talk was the fourth offering in this year's "In the Company of Scholars" lecture series, hosted by Graduate School Dean Peter Salovey.
Gilroy began his talk before an overflow audience in the Graduate School's McDougal Center by cautioning, "This is not a lecture about DuBois, but rather a lecture about his legacy."
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) was a scholar, writer and editor. He earned a Ph.D. at Harvard, co-founded the NAACP, convened international Pan African Congresses and became an international spokesperson for peace and for the rights of oppressed minorities. In later years, DuBois became controversial as a Progressive Party candidate for U.S. Senate for New York. He was indicted, tried and acquitted of subversive activities charges brought against him by the Justice Department in 1951. In 1961 he became a member of the American Communist Party, and soon after, moved to Ghana on the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah to edit the "Encyclopedia Africana." He died in Ghana.
According to Gilroy, the essays collected in "The Souls of Black Folk" were DuBois' first and probably most powerful effort "to reconcile the contending attractions of people, race and nation and to harness them into a higher service that can be defined as the figuration of a modern humanity shorn of its historic attachments to racism."
DuBois argued for a "race-less democracy," which -- combined with social progress and a progressive political agenda -- would change America, and, indeed, the entire world. In order to achieve this new and better moral universe, DuBois contended, individuals and societies had to understand and acknowledge the history of oppression endured by people of African descent.
Gilroy spoke of the importance in today's society of trying "to revive and sustain those elements of black political culture that are like DuBois, tolerant, humane, pluralistic and cosmopolitan in outlook." These still exist, he noted, but in "muted" form. "They have had to take a back seat behind simpler, noisier and for many, more attractive options which are in step, if not always in tune with the mainstream sentiments of consumer capitalism and ... a seductive nationalist agenda."
The Yale scholar derided what he called "the overly innocent versions of liberal thinking that are still in circulation" and pointed to "the need for more assertive and wholeheartedly political moods and tactics."
Gilroy studies race and social theory at the junction between sociological concerns and the humanities. His research interests lie in three principal areas: political sociology and political philosophy, in particular, the relationship between multiculturalism, hierarchy, difference and democracy; the development of black vernacular and popular cultures, especially literature, music and the social relations that support it; and the formation and reproduction of ethnic and racial identity.
-- By Gila Reinstein
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