Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies (Jun 2000)
Empowering African-American Manhood, Empowering African-American Politics: The Quest of W.E.B. Du Bois, 1890-1920
Abstract
W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most influential and significant African-American intellectuals, with a career that spanned the decades from the late nineteenth century until his death in 1963. This article is an attempt to make an examination of Du Bois' political thought in the first phase of his career - from 1890 until the end of the First World War, when Du Bois turned to Marxism to reconfigure his thinking. The constructions of 'race' and 'manhood' within his political thought are of critical importance in understanding his pre-war thinking. Manhood in particular has remained an understudied element in Du Bois' thought. Du Bois both pushed the boundaries of these constructions, and remained imprisoned within them. But his understandings of race and manhood remained inadequate for the African-American political agenda, and as the Great War shattered faith in the old 'truths', Du Bois turned to other intellectual paradigms to inform his work and politics.
