In this book, I take the view that Du Bois is a modern political philosopher for whom the idea of basic civil and political rights for all, as well as the ideal of racial inclusion in the political, social, and economic spheres, is an indispensable basis for combating anti-black racism and for achieving racial justice. My presentation of Du Bois’s thought, in part, builds on and puts pressure on the noted philosopher Charles W. Mills’s recent argument that Du Bois is a “black radical liberal” who aimed to realize the public values of freedom and equality for all in order to welcome black and brown people, refugees, and immigrants into a reconstituted democratic polity.8 Mills maintains that, for Du Bois, the process of advancing true freedom and equality for all requires a radical reorganization of modern American society from the point of view of historically excluded groups. Mills thus offers a theoretical exposition of Du Bois’s original claim that a color line draws a “veil” over communities of color by withdrawing respect and esteem from black and brown people.9 The readiness or otherwise of the American public to dismantle the color line reflects whether or not the republic is truly “modern” – that is, free and equal for all persons regardless of race. As Du Bois put it, “the advance of all depends increasingly on the advance of each,” such that respecting and esteeming historically excluded groups is instrumental for the development of American modernity.10 I flesh out Mills’s interpretation of Du Bois by looking at the breadth of Du Bois’s writings and activism, and present Du Bois’s changing positions as broadly consistent with a “radical” political liberalism. The challenge, of course, would be to show what Du Bois packed into liberalism to make it “radical” and which liberal ideals are valuable in the first place. Christopher Lebron provides an elegant definition about what it means to be a “radical,” one that complements Mills’s view and on which this book elaborates: “Radicalism is the imagination and will to think and act outside the bounds of the normally acceptable.”11 Rethinking the bounds of the normally acceptable in social, economic, and political life is the heart of Du Bois’s political project for reconstituting the US polity.
In this book, I introduce three themes that inform Du Bois’s critique of American democracy. These themes characterize his political liberalism and map some of its radical potential: (1) inclusion, (2) self-assertion, and (3) despair. In the beginning of his professional life (late 1890s–1934), Du Bois advocated the civic enfranchisement of African Americans as American citizens, a principle that is the hallmark of his political liberalism. By the early 1930s, he continued to assert that African Americans must become equal participants in modern American life, but grew skeptical about the white public’s readiness to respect and esteem people of color. As a consequence, to the shock of the NAACP, he began to defend voluntary black self-segregation in order to shore up black civil and economic standing during the Jim Crow era. With the rise of McCarthyism in the 1950s, Du Bois was prosecuted by the US Justice Department and this marked the beginning of a period of something like despair. It was not, however, a time of his intellectual decline and unproductivity. The US federal government accused him of acting as a foreign agent for the Soviet Union because of his activism for world peace. He later shared: “I have faced during my life many unpleasant experiences: the growl of a mob; the personal threat of murder; the scowling distaste of an audience. But nothing has so cowed me as that day, November 8, 1951, when I took my seat in a Washington courtroom as an indicted criminal.”12 Although he avoided jail time, he was blacklisted and slid into poverty. He had confronted – time and again – the color line and had dedicated his life to fighting against it, only to be attacked by the state and abandoned by lifelong friends and allies. Like Socrates, he was rejected by the polity for whose soul he had so passionately fought. His prosecution ultimately drove him into exile under the patronage of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah (in office 1960–66). Du Bois died in Ghana in 1963, the night before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.
The themes of inclusion, self-assertion, and despair that I explore here do not exhaust the range of plausible interpretations of Du Bois’s thought. Rather, on my view, they provide a helpful lens for establishing his unique place in modern political philosophy and the contemporary significance of his critique of American democracy. For example, in focusing on the ideal of civic enfranchisement, we can ask whether the US federal government could be a vehicle for racial justice in spite of its sustained attack on those who criticize it and its history of white supremacy. Though Du Bois held on to the emancipatory potential of the ideal of a racially inclusive polity, some of the questions that his political liberalism raises for us today include: Does the Trump presidency spell the decisive end of appeals to the government for racial justice? Or, on the contrary, does the ascendancy of white power movements confirm the importance of interracial grassroots movements to seize local, state, and federal power? Additionally, what role might black solidarity and self-segregation continue to play in democratic politics? Felony disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and the suppression of voter rights remain destructive vehicles for disenfranchising communities of color; and the escalating attacks on and the criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers from Central and South America and the Caribbean illustrate that racial whiteness is still taken to be a marker of Americanness. It appears as if with each step forward the republic takes two steps back. The urgency of the questions above shows why Du Bois remains relevant in the struggle for justice today. For his work showcases how and why race defines who is to be considered a legitimate member of the American social fabric and what rights and resources political membership should entail.
Some might object to a presentation of Du Bois as centrally focused on theorizing domestic justice in the United States. By foregrounding the US domestic context for most of this book, I do not mean to suggest that his political thought is exhausted by the ideal of civic enfranchisement. Neither do I believe that a focus on domestic justice bars thinking with Du Bois about cosmopolitanism and global justice or grassroots social movements in other countries. The Du Bois scholars Chike Jeffers and Inés Valdez offer rich analyses that extend the promise of Du Bois’s cosmopolitanism with respect to his philosophy of race and pan-Africanism, respectively.13 Juliet Hooker examines the influence of Latinx political theory on Du Bois, challenging assumptions about the role of the global south in his intellectual development.14 To be sure, there is much to say about the intersection between domestic and cosmopolitan justice, as well as about the influence of Latinx and indigenous liberation movements on his theorization of the African-American struggle for emancipation. That is to say, Du Bois’s political thought raises many rich avenues that I will not be able to pursue here. However, I do not take his critique of American democracy to foreclose other important lines for thinking with him about justice and democracy. Instead, I assume that his political thought consists of an interlocking system of concepts and principles that fashion a comprehensive, broadly liberal framework for theorizing global and domestic justice. To illuminate a mere element of this system is not to banish the remaining conceptual architecture to the dark.
One might also object to presenting Du Bois in the context of modern political philosophy or to my emphasis on his political liberalism. In providing a philosophical reconstruction of Du Bois’s critique of American democracy, I establish, among other notable accomplishments, his contributions to modern political philosophy. I build bridges between Du Bois and major figures in the history of philosophy, including Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. My aim is neither to canonize Du Bois in order to prove that he is a formidable political philosopher nor to chastise and chuck central philosophical figures for neglecting the problem of race and racism in general and of Du Bois in particular. Yet where racial violence abounds, and a nation still struggles to be free,