W.E.B. Du Bois, born on this day in 1868, was a seminal American intellectual, author, and socialist and civil rights activist who co-founded both the Niagra Movement and the NAACP. Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and, after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University.
Du Bois was a prolific author notable for his polemics against racism. Among his works are “The Souls of Black Folk”, a collection of essays, and “Black Reconstruction in America”, which challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that black people were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era. Du Bois was also a Pan-Africanist and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers.
Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism, and he was generally sympathetic to socialist causes throughout his life. Because of this, he was spied upon by the U.S. government, who eventually indicted him for acting as an agent of a foreign state while advocating for nuclear disarmament. Notably, the NAACP did not support Du Bois during his trial, which ultimately failed to convict him.
Nevertheless, he chose to leave the US behind him and emigrated to Ghana, at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah, where he spent the rest of his life. He died on the eve of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, on August 27, 1963 in Accra, Ghana.
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” - W.E.B. Du Bois
Hola Camaradas :fidel-salute-big: , Our Comrades In Texas are currently passing Through some Hard times :amerikkka: so if you had some Leftover Change or are a bourgeoisie Class Traitor here are some Mutual Aid programs that you could donate to :left-unity-3:
The State and Revolution :flag-su:
:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:
Remember, sort by new you :LIB:
Yesterday’s megathread :sad-boi:
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THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:
COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS :af:
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Josh Olson had a decent metaphor for why the Democrats are the most immediate enemy for the American left on yesterday’s West Wing Thing episode:
If I’m trapped in a cabin surrounded by a bunch of werewolves who want to eat me, with another person who refuses to give me the silver bullets I need to fight them, my first priority is getting the bullets from that person
DuBois’ slow radicalization against US imperialism is fascinating and definitely undertaught. Basically he thought the US could still be a force for good in the world, paired up with Firestone to “bring civilization” to Liberia, watched them use literal slaves to harvest rubber, watched the US throw its weight around to get those slavery charges brought against Firestone to be entirely dropped, and went “oh OK death to America then.” This all happened in the 20’s, where he first thought Marcus Garvey and his quasi-working class “Back to Africa” movement was crazy and then later was like “oh actually he was right lol I’m a communist now.” His book Black Reconstruction is the best book ever written on US history, was widely regarded as “nonsense” at the time because it pushed back against the narrative of the South as the victim of the Civil War, and is today still at the forefront of Civil War/Reconstruction scholarship. It’s beautifully written as well. Guy was an absolute legend.
I’m tapping the sign.
During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.
- smart Russian bald man
Who said that, Kruschev?
That really sums up exactly how the ruling class operate: condemn, ridicule and renounce any and all revolutionary opposition. And when they’re safely 6ft under bring out all the bells and whistles to glorify them, after they’ve been sanitized for status quo consumption.
Happened with Mandela, King, etc.
But still hasn’t happened with Malcom , BP Party, etc.
A radical revolutionary like King has been “deodorized” and subject to “Santa Claus-ification,” as Cornel West describes it.
Well I know what I’m reading next after Kathleen Belew’s Bring The War Home (which, even if you are thoroughly familiar with the broad strokes of the history of paramilitary hate groups in the US has some important specific details that even I had not learned after extensive research).
Two weeks sober. Shit’s hard, now that I don’t feel sick from drinking, I REALLY crave alcohol at random times throughout the day.
One day at a time, I can’t go back to that poison
My so is doing her taxes and she makes “too much money” for one of the credits she was looking at despite making less than 18k a year lol
i owe federal taxes for the first time in my life (because of how much unemployment i got) so i’m going to become a republican now. so long everyone :gun-shapiro:
