W. E. B. Du Bois on Africa

Eugene F Provenzo, Jr, Edmund Abaka, Eugene F Provenzo, Jr, Edmund Abaka

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315415918
• Subtopic: African American History

W. E. B. Du Bois is arguably the most important Black intellectual of the twentieth century and among the most important intellectual figures in modern African social thought. One of the founders of Pan-Africanism and a key figure in the postwar African liberation movement, he was champion of Africa and its people throughout his life. Despite this fact, his work on Africa has been underemphasized in scholarly writing about him. This book brings together for the first time Du Bois's writings on Africa from the beginning of the twentieth century to his death in the early 1960s. Including over 50 magazine and journal articles, poems and book chapters, the works included in this volume clearly show not only Du Bois's genius as a writer, but his profound understanding of how the quest for racial equality involved all of the people of African origin who suffered under colonial rule in Africa and in the Black disapora. The editors include a historical introduction, headnotes and a bibliography of Du Bois's work on Africa.

Africa: January 1, 1924

IN THIS ARTICLE for The Crisis, Du Bois describes what was until that point in life, perhaps his most important personal experience, that of being presented as the special representative of the president of the United States to the president of the Republic of Liberia.

Africa: January 1, 1924

As I look back and recall the days which I have called great—the occasions in which I have taken part and which have had for me and others the widest significance—I can remember none like the first day of January, 1924. Once I took my bachelor’s degree before a governor, a distinguished college president and others. But that was rather personal in its memory than in any way epochal. Once, before the assembled races of the world, I was called to speak in place of the suddenly sick Sir Harry Johnston. It was a great hour. But it was not greater than the day when I was presented to the President of the Negro Republic of Liberia.

Liberia had been resting under the shock of war. She had asked and been promised a large loan by the United States. She had conformed to every preliminary requirement and waited when waiting was almost fatal. It was not simply money, it was world prestige and high protection at a time when the little republic was sorely beset by creditors and greedy imperial powers. At the last moment, an insurgent Senate peremptorily and finally refused the request and strong recommendation of the President and his advisers and the loan was refused. The Department of State made no statement to the world, and Liberia stood naked, not only well-nigh bankrupt but peculiarly defenseless amid scowling and unbelieving Powers.

It was then that the United States made a gesture of courtesy; a little thing, merely a gesture, but one so fine and so unusual that it was epochal. It sent an American Negro to Liberia. It designated him Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary—the highest rank ever given by any country to a diplomatic agent in black Africa. And it named this Envoy the special representative of the President of the United States to the President of Liberia on the occasion of his inauguration, charging the Envoy with a personal word of encouragement and moral support.

It was a great and significant action. It had in it nothing personal. Another appointee would have been equally significant. Liberia recognized the meaning. She showered upon the Envoy every mark of appreciation and thanks. The Commander of the Liberian Frontier Force was made his special aide and a sergeant his orderly. At 10 A.M. New Year’s morning a company of the Frontier Force, in red fez and khaki, presented arms before the American Legation and escorted Solomon Porter Hood, the American Minister Resident, and myself as Envoy Extraordinary, and my aide to the Presidential Mansion—a beautiful white-verandahed house waving with palms and fronting a grassy street.

Ceremonials are old and, to some, antiquated, and yet this was done with such simplicity, grace and seriousness that none could escape its spell. The Secretary of State met us at the door as the band played the wonderful Liberian national hymn and the soldiers saluted. He took us up a broad stairway and into a great room that stretched across the house. Here in semicircle were ranged the foreign consuls and the Cabinet—the former in white and gilt with orders and swords, the latter in solemn black. Here were England, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland and Panama to be presented to me in order of seniority by the small brown Secretary of State with his perfect poise and ease.

The President entered—frock-coated, with the star of a European order on his breast. The American Minister introduced the Envoy; and the Envoy said: “Your Excellency, the President of the United States has done me the great honor of designating me as his personal representative on the occasion of your inauguration. In so doing, he has had, I am sure, two things in mind. First, he wished publicly and unmistakably to express before the world the interest and solicitude which the hundred million inhabitants of the United States of America have for Liberia. Liberia is a child of the United States, and a sister Republic. Its progress and success is the progress and success of democracy everywhere and for all men; and the United States would view with sorrow and alarm any misfortune that might happen to this Republic and any obstacle that was placed in her path.”

But special and peculiar bonds draw these two lands together. In America live eleven million persons of African descent, they are citizens, legally invested with every right that inheres in American citizenship. And I am sure that in this special mark of the President’s favor, he has had in mind the wishes and hopes of Negro Americans. He knows how proud they are of the hundred years of independence which you have maintained by force of arms and by brawn and brain upon the edge of this mighty continent; he knows that in the great battle against color caste in America, the ability of Negroes to rule in Africa has been and ever will be a great and encouraging reinforcement. He knows that the unswerving loyalty of Negro Americans to their country is fitly accompanied by a pride in their race and lineage, a belief in the potency and promise of Negro blood which makes them eager listeners to every whisper of success from Liberia and eager helpers in every movement for your aid and comfort. The uplift and redemption of all Africa is, in a special sense, the moral burden of Liberia, and the advancement and integrity of Liberia is the sincere prayer of America.

“May I, finally, in thus expressing to your Excellency the good wishes of my country and its President, be permitted to add my own personal sense of the distinction put upon me in making me the humble bearer of these messages. I have now the honor, Sir, to transmit to you the personal word of Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America by the hand of Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of State.”

Source: The Crisis, April 1924.

The Place, the People

IN THE FOLLOWING short article for The Crisis, Du Bois celebrates the vegetation and the people he encounters during his African visit.

The Place, the People

Africa is vegetation. It is the riotous, unbridled bursting life of leaf and limb. It is sunshine—pitiless shine of blue rising from morning mists and sinking to hot night shadows. And then the stars—very near are the stars to Africa, near and bright and curiously arrayed. The tree is Africa. The strong, blinding strength of it—the wide deep shade, the burly lavish height of it. Animal life is there wild and abundant—perhaps in the inner jungle I should note it more but here the herb is triumphant, savagely sure—such beautiful shrubbery, such splendor of leaf and gorgeousness of flower I have never seen.

And the people! Last night I went to Kru-town and saw a Christmas masque. There were young women and men of the color of warm ripe horse chestnuts, clothed in white robes and turbaned. They played the Christ story with sincerity, naiveté and verve. Conceive “Silent Night” sung in Kru by this dark white procession with flaming candles; the little black mother of Christ crossing with her baby, in figured blue, with Joseph in Mandingan fez and mufti-colored cloak and beside them on her worshipping knees the white wreathed figure of a solemn dark angel. The shepherds watched their flocks by night, the angels sang; and Simeon, raising the baby high in his black arms, sang with my heart in English Kru-wise, “Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation!”

Liberia is gay in costume—the thrifty Krus who burst into color of a holiday; the proud Veys always well-gowned; the Liberian himself often in white. The children sometimes in their own beautiful skins.

Sunday, January 13, 1924

I have walked three hours in the African bush. In the high bush mighty trees arose draped, with here and there the flash of flower and call of bird. The monkey sentinel cried and his fellows dashed down the great tree avenues. The way was marked—yonder the leopard that called last night under the moon, a bush cow’s hoof; a dainty tread of antelope. We leaped the trail of driver ants and poked at the great houses of the white ants. The path rose and wound and fell now soft in green glow, now golden, now shimmery through the water as we balanced on a bare log. There was the whine of monkey, scramble of timid unseen life, glide of dark snake. Then came the native farms—coffee, cocoa, plantain, cassava. Nothing is more beautiful than an African village—its harmonious colorings—its cleanliness, its dainty houses with the kitchen palaver place of entertainment, its careful delicate decorations and then the people. I believe that the African form in color and curve is the beautifulest thing on earth; the face is not so lovely—though often comely with perfect teeth and shining eyes,—but the form of the slim limbs, the muscled torso, the deep full breasts!

The bush is silence. Silence of things to be, silence vocal with infinite minor music and flutter and tremble—but silence, deep silence of the great void of Africa.

And the palms; some rose and flared like green fine work; some flared before they rose; some soared and drooped; some were stars and some were sentinels; then came the ferns—the feathery delicate things of grottos and haunts with us, leapt and sang in the sun—they thrust their virgin tracery up and out and almost to trees. Bizarre shapes of grass and shrub and leaf greeted us as though some artist all Divine was playing and laughing and trying every trick of his bewitched pencil above the mighty buildings of the ants.

I am riding on the singing heads of black boys swinging in a hammock. The smooth black bodies swing and sing, the neck set square, the hips sway. O lovely voices and sweet young souls of Africa!

Source: The Crisis, April 1924, Vol. 27, No. 5, p. 274.

African Manners

ON HIS FIRST trip to Africa, Du Bois reflects on the natural civility of the natives, and how their actions might set an example for Whites.

African Manners

I have been two months in West Africa. In that time I have not seen a single sizable quarrel among the natives, a single fight, nor met with a single lewd gesture nor, so far as I could understand, expression. I have met no impudent children or smart and overbearing young folk. I have not only met politeness personally but what is more to the point I have seen the natives uniformly polite to each other—to old Africa and the World of Color and young. I have seen touching expressions of affection between parents and children, deference to authority and tolerance for strange looks and behaviour. I have often thought, when I see the awkward and ignorant missionaries sometimes sent to teach the heathen, that it would be an excellent thing if a few natives could be sent here to teach manners to black and white.

Source: The Crisis, June 1924, Vol. 28, No. 2, p. 535.

Italy and Abyssinia

IN THIS ARTICLE, Du Bois makes clear that Italy’s interests in Abyssinia are part of a larger scheme of European domination and control of Africa, whereby Italy’s invasion is accepted as the price for the country’s secret desertion of her German and Austrian allies during the First World War.

Italy and Abyssinia

Italy wants to become more imperial. By so doing she will distract the attention of her citizens and direct it toward the glories of ancient Rome. When Mussolini looks for territory in which Italy may expand, whither does he cast his eye? Let no foolish person think that he is going to war in order to seize territory from France in Africa or in Syria; or that he has any idea of threatening the British Empire; or that he is going even to attack Turkey unless he can get some foolish little country like Greece to do it for him.

What Italy wants is Abyssinia. She has wanted Abyssinia a long time. When the Mahdi overthrew the English in the Sudan, the English with great generosity gave Italy the chance to seize Abyssinia, and Italy foolishly attempted it. But at the great Battle of Adua, March 1, 1896, the Abyssinians, under the leadership of Menelik and the Empress Taitou, killed four thousand Italians and captured two thousand prisoners. Since then England, France and Italy have been content to draw a cordon around Abyssinia and bide their time. They have tied up her economic resources, taxed her exports and imports and mortgaged her railroads and such other tangible assets as they could get hold of. It is time now for a further step.

In the secret Treaty of London which induced Italy to desert her allies, Germany and Austria...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• To the Nations of the World
• The Color Line Belts the World
• A Day in Africa
• The First Universal Races Congress
• Africa
• The African Roots of the War
• The Negro’s Fatherland
• The Future of Africa
• Africa II
• French and Spanish
• Race Pride
• Pan-Africa
• To the World
• A Second Journey to Pan-Africa
• Africa for the Africans
• Back to Africa
• On Migrating to Africa
• Kenya
• Africa: January 1, 1924
• The Place, the People
• African Manners
• Italy and Abyssinia
• Liberia
• The Pan-African Congresses
• Africa—Its Place in Modern History
• Pan-Africa and New Racial Philosophy
• The Future of World Democracy
• “What Is Africa to Me?”
• The Disenfranchised Colonies
• The Rape of Africa
• “Suez”
• Ghana Calls
• Independent Movements in Africa
• Pan-Africanism: A Mission in My Life
• Africa Awakened
• Lenin and Africa
• Introduction to Nkrumah’s Address to the United Nations
• Report to the Ghana Academy of Sciences
• Greetings to the World from Africa
• First International Congress of Africanists
• Bibliography of W. E. B. Du Bois’ Works Related to Africa
• Index
• About the Authors