[Du Bois’ time as editor of The Crisis was just as much about
critically embracing careful, systematic, empirical science as it was
about skewering the popular view that Blacks (and other nonwhites)
were naturally inferior.] [[link removed]]
W.E.B. DU BOIS EMBRACED SCIENCE TO FIGHT RACISM AS EDITOR OF
NAACP’S MAGAZINE THE CRISIS
[[link removed]]
Jordan Besek
December 14, 2020
The Conversation
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_ Du Bois’ time as editor of The Crisis was just as much about
critically embracing careful, systematic, empirical science as it was
about skewering the popular view that Blacks (and other nonwhites)
were naturally inferior. _
W.E.B. Du Bois in his office at The Crisis in New York City, 1925.,
W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries, CC BY-ND
The NAACP – the most prominent interracial civil rights organization
in American history – published the first issue of The Crisis, its
official magazine [[link removed]], 110 years ago,
in 1910. For almost two and a half decades, sociologist and civil
rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois served as its editor, famously using
this platform to dismantle scientific racism.
[Yellowed print ad for The Crisis with photo of a young Black child
and text.]
[[link removed]]
An advertisement for The Crisis, circa March 1925. W.E.B. Du Bois
Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives,
University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
[[link removed]], CC
BY-ND [[link removed]]
At the time, many widely respected intellectuals gave credence to
beliefs [[link removed]] that empirical evidence
exists to justify a “natural” white superiority. Tearing down
scientific racism was thus a necessary project for The Crisis. Under
Du Bois’ leadership, the magazine laid bare the irrationality of
scientific racism.
Less remembered, however, is how it also sought to help its readers
understand and engage with contemporary science.
In nearly every issue, the magazine reported on scientific
developments, recommended scientific works or featured articles on
natural sciences. Du Bois’ time as editor of The Crisis was just as
much about critically embracing careful, systematic, empirical science
as it was about skewering the popular view that Blacks (and other
nonwhites) were naturally inferior.
Sociologists Patrick Greiner
[[link removed]] and
Brett Clark
[[link removed]] and I
[[link removed]]
recently pored through the magnificent W.E.B. Du Bois Papers
[[link removed]] at the
Special Collections and University Archives at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst. We found that Du Bois not only drew from
natural sciences [[link removed]], but
thought deeply about the ways in which The Crisis should and should
not do so. He would even go so far as to critique allies for using
science in ways he thought inappropriate.
Case in point: Defending Darwin
On Feb. 18, 1932, the Harlem pastor Adam Clayton Powell wrote to Du
Bois, asking him to publish his recent address at a NAACP mass meeting
in an upcoming issue of The Crisis.
A week later, Du Bois responded
[[link removed]] that
while he’d read Powell’s address “with great interest,” he
could not publish it as written. Why? It got biologist Charles Darwin
and his theory of natural selection very wrong.
[excerpt of typewritten letter on yellowed paper]
[[link removed]]
An excerpt of Du Bois’ letter of Feb. 25, 1925 to Adam Clayton
Powell. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and
University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
[[link removed]]
Darwin, explained Du Bois, did not try to demonstrate “who ought to
survive,” as Powell’s address assumed. Rather, Darwin’s work is
“simply a scientific statement” that had been twisted to support
eugenicist and other pseudo-scientific doctrines.
This short reply to the powerful pastor contains so much. It shows
that Du Bois demanded a nuanced appreciation of Darwin’s theory of
natural selection. Further, he insisted Darwin should not be held
liable for the racist ideologues who misappropriated his work,
cloaking their demagoguery in scientific objectivity. Darwin’s work
is of clear value, but one must always remain aware that, like with
all science, politics shaped its reception.
For Du Bois, how one understands and uses science were not minor
issues.
Science in The Crisis
In the first section of the first issue of The Crisis
[[link removed]], there is an archaeological
report. It describes how “exploration of the African continent is
yet in its infancy and will doubtless yield surprising results in
establishing the advanced state of development attained by the black
races in early times.”
According to the latest archaeology, in other words, African heritage
is something to be proud of.
[Subheading 'SCIENCE' above a column of text.]
[[link removed]]
On page 6 of the inaugural issue of The Crisis, a subheading for
‘SCIENCE.’ The Crisis. Vol. 1, No. 1; 1910. The Modernist Journals
Project. Brown and Tulsa Universities, ongoing. www.modjourn.org
[[link removed]]
Later in that issue, under the subheading “Science,” it is noted
that a paper was read before the British Association for the
Advancement of Science concluding that “all earlier human races were
probably colored.” This same section notes a recent study providing
evidence that, in a direct rebuke to scientific racism, “mere brain
weight is no indication of mentality.”
In the second issue of The Crisis, the famed Columbia University
anthropologist Franz Boas explained that there is no physical
anthropological evidence “showing inferiority of the Negro race
[[link removed]].” Later issues would
highlight early African metallurgy and critique racist intelligence
tests. Another would recommend a work by Peter Kropotkin
[[link removed]], the great Russian anarchist
and zoologist, which suggested that natural selection is more about
cooperation among species than any fight for survival between them.
[Article headlined 'Is the Negro Inferior?']
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The Crisis published articles by prestigious scholars who drew on
science to refute racism. The Crisis, Nov. 1932
[[link removed]]
The Crisis published this sort of work throughout Du Bois’ time as
editor. The reason why is clear. Du Bois knew that a proper
understanding of science does not lead to biological essentialism –
the idea that biology limits who you are and what you can do. It leads
to the exact opposite conclusion, that every population has the
ability to make their own meaning and determine themselves as they see
fit. The only constraints are social processes like colonialism and
racism. Science, for Du Bois, was in this way necessary and
liberating.
Science for an emancipated politics
Today’s political moment is different than Du Bois’, though there
are some parallels. One is that a political life free of exploitation
and enhanced by participatory democracy remains out of reach for many.
Disenfranchisement still exists in many forms. As the Black Lives
Matter movement and others have shown, racism is a big reason why.
[W.E.B. Du Bois in his office, ca. 1948]
[[link removed]]
W.E.B. Du Bois in his office, ca. 1948, holding the first issue of The
Crisis. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and
University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
[[link removed]], CC BY-ND
[[link removed]]
While only a piece of the puzzle, Du Bois’ insistence on critically
embracing a careful, systematic and empirical view of science can be
an important part of that struggle for an emancipated politics. A
critical embrace of science can help people better tackle pressing
issues like environmental justice, health care disparities and more.
To critically embrace science is to, as Du Bois did in the pages of
The Crisis, remain unwavering in the fact that any scientific theory
promoting racial and other forms of injustice is categorically wrong.
He demonstrated how to reject racist science without rejecting the
ways that science can help people better understand our relationships
with the world. In particular, engaging science shows how our
relationships with each other are not determined by nature, but are
under our own control.
[_Deep knowledge, daily._ Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter
[[link removed]].][The
Conversation]
Jordan Besek
[[link removed]], Assistant
Professor of Sociology, _University at Buffalo
[[link removed]]_
This article is republished from The Conversation
[[link removed]] under a Creative Commons license. Read
the original article
[[link removed]].
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