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4 - Lange-1983-WEB DuBois and The First Scientific Study of Afro-America
4 - Lange-1983-WEB DuBois and The First Scientific Study of Afro-America
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Clark Atlanta University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Phylon
(1960-)
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By WERNER J. LANGE
' Among the earliest published expressions of antiracism by Franz Boas, who delivered the 1906 Commencement
address at Atlanta University upon the invitation of W.E.B. DuBois, were: "What the Negro has done in
Africa," Ethical Record, 5 (March 1904): 106-09. The first Boasian, Alexander Chamberlain of Clark University,
continued this antiracist tradition with publications such as: "The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civiliza-
tion," Journal of Race Development, 1 (1911): 482-502. For a general survey of Boas' contributions to early
American anthropology, see George Stocking, The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911: A Franz
Boas Reader (New York, 1974). See also St. Clair Drake, "Anthropology and the Black Experience," The Black
Scholar (Sept/Oct. 1980): 2-31. It should be noted, however, that Drake is incorrect in suggesting that Boas
obstructed the anthropological education and career of J.E. Kwegyir Aggrey; see Boas' letter to Booker T.
Washington, The Professional Correspondence of Franz Boas (Philadelphia, Nov. 30, 1904).
2Among these organizations were: Negro Historical Society of Philadelphia, 1897; American Negro Academy,
1897; The Society for the Collection of Negro Folk Lore, 1890; The Negro Society for Historical Research,
1912; The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1915; First Pan-African Conference, 1900;
Niagara Movement, 1905; and the N.A.A.C.P., 1909.
3 Indeed no black was so recognized until Caroline Bond Day and Zora Neale Hurston received their anthropologi-
cal training under Ernest Hooten and Franz Boas, respectively. Though such ranking figures in American
anthropology as Melville Herskovits and Oscar Lewis honored him and sought his advice, DuBois himself was
not consistently identified as an anthropologist until well after the Second World War. For example, a 1950 press
release of the Peace Information Center, which he directed until its operations were shut down by the US
government, identified him as a "noted Negro anthropologist and historian" The Papers of W.E.B. DuBois
(Amherst, August 24, 1950), reel 65, frame 405. For the Herskovits and Lewis correspondence, see ibid. (Feb.
20, 1948), reel 62, frame 49 and (April 6, 1948) reel 62, frame 258.
135
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136 PHYLON
4 In fact, it is doubtful that in the whole history of American social science that any American scholar had
contributed more to the body of scientific knowledge with less research funding than did W.E.B. DuBois during
his first tenure at Atlanta University.
5 Its only weakness as a collective work of anthropology lies in neglect of linguistic studies and, to a lesser degree,
documentation of material culture. One major strength, on the other hand, is the fact that when dealing with
Afro-American values and literary arts, DuBois was simultaneously a creative agent as well as an astute
observer - a rather unique case of participant observation.
Vol. XLIV, No. 2, 1983
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STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICA 137
6The contributions to the scientific study of black people by other black scholars during the formative years of
American social science is certainly not to be discounted. Among those contributions are the following: Kelly
Miller, "A Review of Hoofman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro" (Washington, 1896);
Alexander Crummel, "Civilization the Primal Need of the Race" (Washington, 1898); William Hayes Ward,
"Address to National Negro Conference," Proceedings of the National Negro Conference 1909 (New York,
1969), pp. 9-14; Henri Gregorie's An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of
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138 PHYLON
Negroes (London, 1910); and William H. Ferris, The African Abroad, or His Evolution in Western Civilization
tracing his Development under Caucasian Milieu (New York, 1968).
W.E.B. DuBois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois, A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade
of Its First Century (New York, 1968), p. 170.
Cited in Herbert Aptheker, "W.E.B. DuBois: Story of a Half Century of Distinguished Service to Humanity,"
National Guardian, New York, Feb. 8, 1950.
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STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICA 139
9W.E.B. DuBois, Black Folk Then and Now, An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race (New
York, 1939), p. ix.
"' Letter contained in Herbert Aptheker, The Correspondence of W.E.B. DuBois, Selections, 1877-1934, 1
(Amherst, 1973), p. 7.
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140 PHYLON
"He was, incidentally, the first Afro-American to deliver a paper before the American Historical Association. To
be the first black (or American) in a variety of illustrious realms became almost commonplace for DuBois in
later years: e.g., Harvard PhD; publication in Max Weber's journal, the only American to ever enjoy this status
during Weber's lifetime; National Institute of Arts and Letters; World Peace Award; Lenin Peace Prize.
12 Schmoller was also the mentor of Albion Small, one of the recognized founders of American sociology.
'3Letter contained in Aptheker, op. cit., 1973, p. 25.
4 W.E.B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, A Social Study (Philadelphia, 1899), p. 1. Save for the last item
mentioned by DuBois, this was generally in line with what C.C. Harrison, a representative of the University of
Pennsylvania, stated the purposes to be in a letter (August 15, 1896): "the University has entered upon this
work as a part of its duty and wishes to make the investigation as thorough and exact as possible. We want to
know precisely how this class of people live; what occupations they follow; from what occupations they are
excluded; how many of their children go to school; and to ascertain every fact which will throw light upon this
social problem; and then having this information and these accurate statistics before us, to see to what extent
and in what way, proper remedies may be applied." Aptheker, op. cit., 1973, p. 40. Nearly fifty years after
completing the remarkable study, DuBois interpreted the intent of his employer to have been considerably less
than honorable: "My study of the Philadelphia Negro was designed by its promoters to shunt the blame of dirty
politics on Negro politicians. I showed what Negroes had meant in the history of Pennsylvania." W.E.B. DuBois,
"Negro History Week," New York Compass (New York, Feb. 11, 1951). "The ultimate evil was stupidity,"
DuBois stated in an unpublished assessment of this seminal work sent to the editor of The American Scholar in
1960, "the cure for it was knowledge based on scientific study." W.E.B. DuBois, "The Scientific Study of the
American Negro," The Papers of W.E.B. DuBois (Amherst, October 5, 1960).
Vol. XLIV, No. 2, 1983
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STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICA 141
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142 PHYLON
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STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICA 143
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144 PHYLON
juxta-position, but more than that to watch a long and intricate process of
amalgamation carried on hundreds of years and resulting in millions of men
of mixed blood. And yet because the subject of amalgamation with black
races is a sore point with us, we have hitherto utterly neglected and thrown
away every opportunity to study and know this vast mulatto population and
have deliberately and doggedly based our statements and conclusions con-
cerning this class upon pure fiction or unvarnished lies.26
26W.E.B. DuBois, "The Atlanta Conferences" in Green and Driver, op. cit., pp. 55-56.
27W.E.B. DuBois, An ABC of Color (New York, 1963), p. 33.
2W.E.B. DuBois, The Negro Common School, Atlanta University Publication No. 6 (Atlanta, 1901), p. 1.
29 The Atlanta University Conference Reports edited by DuBois included: Some Efforts of Negroes for Social
Betterment (1898); The Negro in Business (1899); The College-Bred Negro (1900); The Negro Common School
(1901); The Negro Artisan (1902); The Negro Church (1903); Some Notes on Negro Crime, Particularly in
Georgia (1904); A Select Bibliography of the American Negro (1905); Health and Physique of the Negro
American (1906); Economic Cooperation among Negro Americans (1907); The Negro American Family (1908);
Efforts for Social Betterment among Negro Americans (1909); The College-Bred Negro American (1910); The
Common School and the Negro American (1911); The Negro American Artisan (1912); and Morals and
Manners among Negro Americans (1914).
Vol. XLIV, No. 2, 1983
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STUDY OF AFRO-AMERICA 145
His first book on Africa, The Negro, was published in 1915 - a turning
point in the scientific study of black people. That study had reached, by
1915, a higher stage of development as well as a clearer delineation of
intellectual forces. For it was in this first year of the First World War -
which DuBois argued was caused by white supremacist repression of non-
white peoples32 - that Carter Woodson founded the Association for the
Study of Negro Life and History. It was also in 1915 that Gobineau's
vindication for eternal enslavement of nonwhites (The Inequality of
Human Races) was first published in English and that D.W. Griffith
produced his technically accomplished but ideologically depraved Birth of
a Nation. The scientific study of and the antiscientific reaction against
black people had come of age. Never again would the scientific debate
return to the Neanderthal concerns and intellectual atavisms of phrenol-
ogy, anthroposociology, Lamarckianism and other racist doctrines of nine-
teenth century American "ethnology." Although racism in American
anthropology and other sciences was not immediately eradicated by the
scientific studies of blacks initiated by DuBois, it was served irrevocable
notice that its days within scientific circles, and indeed society altogether,
were numbered.
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146 PHYLON
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