![]() ![]() The July 1918 issue of The Crisis, the N.A.A.C.P.’s monthly magazine, featured an editorial by Du Bois titled “Close Ranks.” Despite his earlier blistering critiques of the U.S. Initially, Du Bois was the most prominent Black American to support the war effort. “I was convinced and said that American white officers fought more valiantly against Negroes within our ranks than they did against the Germans. “I saw the mud and dirt of the trenches I heard from the mouths of soldiers the kind of treatment that Black men got in the American army,” he said. Du Bois traveled to France after the armistice to interview Black troops. This hope soon gave way to disillusionment. “I did not believe in war, but I thought that in a fight with America against militarism and for democracy we would be fighting for the emancipation of the Negro race.” “I felt for a moment during the war that I could be without reservation a patriotic American,” Du Bois said. As the historian Chad Williams describes in his illuminating new account, Du Bois told the friends and luminaries who had gathered how he was profoundly influenced and troubled by the First World War. ![]() Wearing his Harvard doctoral regalia, he delivered a speech surveying his life and work as a scholar and activist. Du Bois celebrated his 70th birthday by attending a convocation in his honor at Spelman College in Atlanta. Du Bois and the First World War, by Chad L. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |