New Directions

Volume 3 | Issue 4 Article 6

10-1-1976

The Ideological Pilgramage of Du Bois: AnAnalytical EssayClarence G. Contee

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Recommended CitationContee, Clarence G. (1976) "The Ideological Pilgramage of Du Bois: An Analytical Essay," New Directions: Vol. 3: Iss. 4, Article 6.Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss4/6

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The IdeologicalPilgrimageOf DuBois

An Analytical Essay

By Clarence G. Contee

In his classic autobiography, Dusk ofDawn, published in 1940when he was 72,Dr. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois wrote: "Myleadership was a leadership solely ofideas. . But of course, no idea is perfectand forever valid. Always to be living andapposite and timely, it must be modifiedand adapted to changing facts." Du Boisknew how to make a major interpretationof one of the key meanings in his own life.He knew also what a social scientist coulddo with ideas.

When he wrote these words, he was atwork for a second time as a professor ofsociology at Atlanta University. Thesewords pointed out two aspects of the typeof leadership Du Bois gave. One was thatof a Du Boisian series of ideologies of lib-eration, which began in the 1890s andended with his open advocacy of Com-munism in 1961-two years before hisdeath in his adopted country of Ghana.The second was his constant use of thetenets of pragmatism and of the functionsof the knowledge of the social sciences ofAfro-Americans. Both, as he interpretedthem, demanded a modification of ideolo-gies and truths, if these did not affect thedesired changes.

What is the function of a leader? Forone like Du Bois, a leader performs as anideologue. In the course of his 70 years ofactive writing and editing as a spokes-man for his people, Africans all over theworld, he created a variety of programsof action based upon the ultimate aim ofBlack liberation and equality through theuse of peaceful means and the accept-ance of the values of the American way oflife. One might say that Du Bois was anexample of a literary revolutionary.

Bom on February 23, 1868, in GreatBarrington, Massachusetts, a small townnestled in the Berkshire Hills of westernMassachusetts, Du Bois was the onlychild of parents free for almost a centuryin that area. He was reared in the tradi-

tions of New England, especially in thelove of learning.

The informal and formal education DuBois received as a student in Great Bar-rington, and in universities, inculcated inhim the traditions and values of the Ameri-can social system. He was a precociousyouth in learning traditions pertinent to hisfuture causes. He learned of the racist at-titudes toward Blacks as a newspapercorrespondent for a Black newspaper,The New York Globe (later Age), and frompersonal experiences in Massachusetts.Nevertheless, he continued to accept themyth that excellence in performance re-ceived its due merit, regardless of race.His high school education was in thebest American liberal and classical tradi-tions in the mid-1880s.

His experiences as a university studentin Nashville, in Cambridge, and in Europepresented him examples of the besttradi-tions Western education had to offer.These experiences also made him realizemore deeply than before the great neces-sity of adherence to the traditions found inthe Declaration of Independence and inthe Constitution, as well as in the basichuman rights.

At Fisk University in Nashville, Tennes-see, from which Du Bois earned the A. B.degree in 1888, he was rudely awakenedto the deep problems of racism in theSouth. He left Fisk with a major in philos-ophy, intending to pursue that vocation asa way of life. He had also started his ca-reer as an editor while at Fisk.When DuBois arrived in Cambridge to attend Har-vard University, he was still interested inphilosophy. But when he completed hisstudies at Harvard, he had obtained thefirst Ph.D. in history given an Afro-Ameri-can in the United States. He had alsogrown closer to his own community, call-ing it a "nation." He had become a closefriend of William James, the philosopher-psychologist and developer of pragma-tism, and of Albert Bushnell Hart, the his-torian who taught him the techniques ofthe social sciences, both of whom wereinfluential teachers of his at Harvard.

Pragmatism contained in its tenets sup-port for individual creative efforts. toreform society and the precepts of philo-sophical truths.

Whi Ie he was a graduate student atHarvard, Du Bois travelled to Europe andattended for two years (1892-1894) thefamed University of Berlin. It was here,when he celebrated his 25th birthday, thathe began his sincere search for an ideol-ogy. He wrote in his diary in 1893 on hisbirthday that: "I therefore take the worldthat the Unknown lay in my hands andwork for the rise of the Negro people, tak-ing for granted that their best develop-ment means the best development of theworld ... These are my plans: to make aname in science, to make a name in liter-ature and thus to raise my race." He wasgroping at this point, but he had settledon his life's work. He was planning to useliterature as a liberation device, using thescientific method as a means to aid theseends. Already he was prophetic.

Thus as a very well-educated and well-travelled member of the elite, Du Boiswatched sadly in the late 1890s from hisvantages as a student of race relationsand as a professor, mainly at AtlantaUniversity, the decline in the status of theBlack man in the world. In Africa, as theEuropeans conquered, they crushed mer-ci lessly African rebell ions and resist-ances. In the Caribbean, whites main-tained their minority control over hugemajorities, who found few opportunitiesfor political and social advancements. Inthe United States,discrimination and seg-regation increased precipitously as thepromises made during Reconstructionwere subverted by white racists. AnotherBlack leader, Booker T.Washington, aroseto champion the acceptance of these de-teriorating conditions, asking only for achance for the masses of Blacks to earn adollar.

Just before Du Bois went to teach his-tory and sociology at Atlanta Universityin 1897, he joined an elitist Black bour-geoisie group-limited to 40- the Ameri-

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22 can Negro Academy, which planned towork for the cultural uplift of the race. Hestated his views in The Conservation ofRaces (1897), a pamphlet he wrote as apolicy statement for the Academy. Blacksmust not be absorbed, he wrote, into thewhite race, "if they are to take their justplace in the van of Pan-Negroism." Blackspossessed the skills to develop leaderslike Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Haitianrevolutionary, and to make contributionsto world civilization that only Blackscould make.

Such statements indicated a proudbelief in Negritude and Black culturalnationalism. Blacks must conserve theirphysical powers, intellectual endow-ments, spiritual ideals. These values wereto be preserved by race unity, race orga-nization, race solidarity, Black capitalism,Black arts and Iiterature.With these meansthe ends of conservation of the race werepossible of achievement. Du Bois madeno mention of the use of violence. Hisprincipal weapon at that time was the useof the techniques of the social sciencesto present favorably data from his AtlantaUniversity Studies on the Problems of theNegro. These facts, Du Bois ardentlybelieved then, would demonstrate thatscience was the handmaiden of racialuplift.

Yet, the more Du Bois watched themarked deterioration of race relations andthe status of the Afro-American and theAfrican in the world of white power, themore he was dissatisfied with the allegedand assumed truths of the accommoda-tion phi losophy ofWashington. His attend-ance in 1900 at the Pan-African Confer-ence in London helped Du Bois see theefforts of other Blacks trying to practiceself-help in order to protest white oppres-sion and even seemingly genocide inAfrica, and in America. It was in the "Ad-dress to the Nations of the World," beforethe delegates to the Conference, that hepenned his famous prophesy: "The prob-lem of the Twentieth Century is theproblem of the color line ... " He repeatedthis prediction in his classic, The Souls of

Black Folk (1903), in which he made hisfirst trenchant public attack on the ideol-ogy of Booker T. Washington. He offeredinstead a more militant set of means toaccomplish the same ends since the com-promise philosophy of Washingtonbrought retreat. In The Souls of Black Folk,he emphasized that the time for retreathad ended. He demanded, by recallingthe principles of equality found in theDeclaration of Independence, that thevote was necessary to secure the endsfound in that great document. Open oppo-sition erupted between the two leaders.Du Bois formed his own protest elitistBlack group, mostly college-educatednortherners,the Niagara Movement.Thesemen represented the Talented Tenth, saidDu Bois; in them he found the class ofmen to lead Blacks to liberation. In 1906,at the Harper's Ferry meeting of theNiagara Movement, he wrote to protestdiscrimination and segregation: "Againstthis the Niagara Movement eternally pro-tests. We will not be satisfied to take onejot or tittle less than our full manhoodrights .... It is a fight for ideals by the wea-pons of the vote, the law, and educationfor thinking and aspiring." The membersvowed never to stop their protestationsand assailing the ears of America. DuBois in his means clearly anticipated theappeals the late Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.,made to the conscience of white Americaand their American Creed.

The facile mind of Du Bois was notlimited to only one road to Paradise, fullequality for Blacks in America and else-where. There was no really significantroad block to the use of several paths atthe same time; the blocks were onlymental, mused Du Bois. In 1907, in TheHorizon, a magazine he founded as thevoice of the Niagara Movement, Du Boisannounced that he was a "Socialist-of-thePath." His socialism did not include thecomplete nationalization of property; hewas not prepared to part with some of theconcepts which underlined consensusamong Americans and other Westerners.He was mainly concerned with the uplift-

ing of the Black poor via a more equitabledistribution of wealth. He did see social-ism as the means for the attainment of theideals of human brotherhood, equality ofopportunity, and the best hope for theprogress of Afro-Americans. In 1911, hejoined the Socialist Party. Yet he with-drew in 1912, because the socialists hadnot conquered their own brand of whiteracism. He supported Woodrow Wilson,the next President, becauseWi Isonoffereda chance for racial justice, a promiseWilson promptly forgot in 1913.

Growing open opposition to the ideol-ogy of Du Bois by Washington and hisfollowers curtailed the financial supportof his work and his school; most whitephilanthropists simply did not counte-nance criticism of Washington. For-tunately, for Du Bois, an organization ofwhite liberals, some socialists, and Blacks-the National Association for the Ad-vancement of Colored People, NAACP-was founded in 1909 with views similarto his. Du Bois was one of the foundingmembers, and he became the only Blackofficial in the national office in his capac-ity as editor and founder of The Crisis, theherald of the organization. Du Bois,through the use of The Crisis as a majorpropaganda instrument, persuaded manyBlacks and whites to support his solu-tions; he brought the last few members ofthe Niagara Movement into the rolls ofthe NAACP. Du Bois knew that ideas ex-pressed in the periodical were witnessto the concept that the pen is mightierthan the sword, sometimes.

When Booker T. Washington died in1915 (Washington's ideological deathhad occurred in 1910), Du Bois becamethe major spokesman for the protestphilosophy as the main means toward theends. Itwas in the year 1915, in The Crisis,that Du Bois published one of his mostfamous statements of his search for ideol-ogies of Black Liberation. He demon-strated in the statement, "The ImmediateProgram of the American Negro," that hisconcept of an ideology then was bothwithin and without the confines of the3

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philosophy of the NAACP. Du Bois notedthat: "The immediate program of theAmerican Negro means nothing unlessit is immediate to his great ideal and theultimate ends of his development." Theseends were the same as before, full equal-ity, and these were needed for "self-defense," and the ultimate survival of thedarker races on earth. Du Bois had re-tained his concept of Pan-Negroism. Toachieve these ends, he was in generalagreement with the strategy and tactics ofthe interracial, white-dominated NAACP.

"What now are the practical stepswhich must be taken to accomplish theseaims?", Du Bois asked rhetorically. Theywere the use of courts, lobbying, legisla-tion and interracial contact. He was al-ready aware of the dangers of polariza-tion as a prevention of advancement. DuBois put much personal faith in the dis-semination of the printed word in TheCrisis, and a Negro encyclopedia. Heeven deviated from the white-dominatedNAACP stance and called for an earlyform of Black power and Black national-ism. He recommended that the means ofrace organizations, controlled and guidedinto "our objects, our aims, and our ideals

." must be utilized. Thus, there weregrounds upon which Du Bois was bothrespected and feared by the NAACP hier-archy. Yet it is apparent that Du Boistruthfully stated that he shaped the ideol-ogy of the early years of the organization.

A partial and major victory of the ideol-ogy of Du Bois over that of Washingtoncame the next year at a conference ofBlack leaders which was held in the homeof NAACP official Joel E. Spingam, withthe guidance of Du Bois. About 200Blacks made peace, and the terms of thetreaty meant that Du Bois had won. Theresolutions stressed the vote, all forms ofeducation, and the right to advocate allmeans of liberation in all regions. Ac-cording to Du Bois, who published thereport of 1925, the race "has learned tounderstand and respect the good faith,methods and ideals of those who are

working for the solution to this problem invarious sections of the country."

Thus, during World War I, and for sometime after, Du Bois was a leader with alarge following. He may well have beenthe most respected Black leader at thattime. In the course of the war, he came toidentifyclose!ywith the established order.He supported the Allies against the Cen-tral Powers. He made, in a famous edi-torial in The Crisis in 1918, a request thatBlacks "Close Ranks" around the effortsof Woodrow Wilson. He was criticized bysome people for the stand he took. DuBois, at one time, tried to get a commis-sion in the Army after upholding thepractice of creating Black army officersin a segregated camp. Yet he remainedthe principal leader, since most Blackshoped that the war to make the world safefor Democracy would bring them somedemocratic gains.

Ironically, it was not for work within theUnited States for his people that Du Boiswon a coveted recognition from theNAACP, the Spingam Medal. Itwas for hisefforts to create organ ized Pan-African-ism, the unity and liberation of Blacks allover the world. Like Du Bois, many Blacksaround the world thought through Pan-Africanism they could gain advantagesfrom the concepts of self-determination,anti-colonialism, democracy, and anti-imperialism circulating in the war atmos-phere. The greatest hope for African liber-ation was the intemational ization of theformer German colonies there. Withpressure. these colonies might even havesome semblance of self-determination.

With financial and spiritual help fromthe NAACP, and adroit maneuverings, DuBois was able to gather 57 liberal whilesand members of the Black elite fromAfrica, the West Indies and America andconvene the Pan-African Congress of1919 to apply racial and political pres-sure on the decisions of the Paris PeaceConference meeting then. It was domin-ated by Afro-Americans and by Du Bois,who was the architect of the ideology. In

two documents, both by the hand of Du 23

Bois, a memorandum of 1918 to theNAACP, and the Resolutions of the Con-gress, the eventual liberation of Africanswas through the expedient of the inter-nationalization of the former Germancolonies in Africa as a step toward self-determination and nationalism. Advisedas means toward the modernization ofAfrica in preparation for that day wereeducation, the preservation of key ele-ments of the African way of life, the use ofnative administrators, judicious invest-ment of capital to benefit the natives, andthe right of Africans, as soon as they be-come ready, to participate in the politicalaffairs of their areas. Du Bois becameknown as the "father of Pan-Africanism"for these efforts. He knew also that thefreedom of Africans would affect thenature of the treatments of Africans else-where. The efficacy of the meeting is sti IIa matter of dispute, though Du Bois madegreat claims for its accomplishments.

Another irony was that in the 1920s thedominant ideology was the back-to-Africamovement of Marcus Garvey, a WestIndian who set up in Harlem a Pan-Africanorganization, the Universal Negro Im-provement Association (UNIA). He pro-duced two amazing feats. He made thegreatest mass movement among Africansand Afro-Americans, and he made thismovement into one for the emigration ofAfro-Americans to Africa. These acts in-dicated that Afro-Americans had gainedlittle from the democratic rhetoric and theshallow prosperity of the times. Garveyplanned to conquer Africa and install anAfro-American imperialism. It was inAfrica that Blacks could have presidents,admirals, generals, factories, captains ofindustries, and distinguished professors;these were the symbols of a great nation-ality. To accomplish these aims, deniedthem in their diaspora, Garvey and hisfollowers set up an abortive steamshipIine, the Black Star Line, factories in thecities of America, a uniformed army ofIiberation, and nurses to minister to thewounded in the struggle ahead. He cham- 4

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24 pioned Black pride, Black beauty, andBlack history. Garvey promised much,delivered very few tangibles, but the in-tangible legacy of a race pride that hasblossomed in the second half of the 20thcentury.

Thus Du Bois and Garvey contendedfor leadership; in 1924 the UNIA conven-tion read Du Bois out of the Black race,because he had white support. Yet DuBois did not oppose the ultimate aims ofGarvey, except the concept of Afro-Ameri-can imperial ism inAfrica. Du Bois wanted,however, the interests of the poor peoplesafeguarded; he wanted also only skilledBlacks to go to Africa. In the final analysis,said Du Bois, the liberation of Afro-Ameri-cans had to be done in America, wheremost of them would remain. History hadproved the impracticality of the back-to-Africa philosophy as a solution to thepredicaments of Blacks in the diaspora.Du Bois was gainsaying his pragmatism.He did not give up on the idea of orga-nized Pan-Africanism; he headed meet-ings of the Pan-African Congress in 1921,1923, and 1927.

Nor had he tumed away from the meth-ods of the NAACP.This was evident in thesame period when in 1921, one of hisreaders suggested to Du Bois that Marx-ism and Communism were the answersto the problems of the Black proletariat.Du Bois published a very revealing buttraditional statement: "The NAACP hasbeen accused of not being a 'revolu-tionary' body. We do not believe in rev-olution." But the NAACP expected revolu-tionary changes in its ends via the tradi-tional liberal American means: reason,human sympathy, the education of thechildren, and not by murder. "The NAACPis organized to agitate, to investigate, toexpose, to defend, to reason, to appeal.This is our program and this is the wholeof our program." The tactical use of facts,accurate knowledge, careful distinctionswere keys in the overall struggle. Theclass struggle was not applicable, be-cause the laboring classes were sepa-rated by racist views of the whites, who

were unsympathetic to the plight of Blacklabor.

By the end of the 1920s Du Bois was inhis 60s. He had fought the valiant fightfor racial integration and against racismfor three decades. Yet as he viewed theseyears, he was still not satisfied with theamount of social changes for the benefitof Blacks everywhere. His years of speak-ing, writing literary agitation, and protest-ing had not proved effective enough.Another technique was needed; Du Boisreached the conclusion that the economicapproach held possibilities for racialliberation.

It was the Depression that began in1929 that reenforced Du Bois in his eco-nomic analysis; hence his change froman ideology based upon the vote andlegislation to one based upon the erectionof a Black economic commonwealth. Theroots of "his latest battle cry" lay in hisinterests in collectivism and in Blacknationalism. By late 1933, Du Bois wasready to publish his next ideology, hopingthat as a leader many would follow him.In the pages of The Crisis, he called forBlacks to segregate themselves in orderto build up their own organizations, es-pecially their financial ones. "It is therace-conscious black man co-operatingtogether in his own institutions and move-ments who will eventually emancipate thecolored race, and the great step aheadtoday [1934-35] is for the American Negroto accomplish his economic emancipa-tion through voluntary, determ ined co-operative efforts." After all, Blacks inAmerica, were a "nation within a nation."

Du Bois had come full circle since 1897;he had gone back to the self-help andsegregation philosophy of the days andviews of Booker T. Washington. But hefound himself in 1934 a leader with nofollowers. Most of his white and Blackfriends were dismayed and severely criti-cal; he lost his post with the NAACP. Hewas clearly out of step with the majorityBlack opinion- racial equality with fullintegration by constitutional means. DuBois found himself at the beginning of a

long period of alienation, the degreesvarying, from which he never fully re-covered. From 1934 to 1944, Du Bois wasagain a professor of sociology at AtlantaUniversity, where he pursued the themesof segregation and collectivism.

In articles and speeches, Du Boisstressed the upl ift of the Black proletariatby economic segregation and thestrengthening of the Black school, Church,and retail business. Effective planningwas essential for the success of the ideol-ogy. The theme of collectivism led DuBois to read more deeply into Marxism. Itsimpact on Du Bois was noted in his classicMarxist revision of Reconstruction, BlackReconstruction: An Essay Toward a His-tory of the Part Which Black Folk Played inthe Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy inAmerica, 1860-1880. His race pride em-phasized the positive benefits of theparticipation of Blacks in the political andeconomic affairs of Reconstruction. Yetwhen in 1944 he wrote, "My EvolvingProgram for Negro Freedom," Du Boisrightly rejected Communism as a "sui-cidal" solution for Blacks.

Even though he rejoined the NAACP in1944, after precipitate dismissal fromAtlanta as the powerless director ofSpecial Research, Du Bois proffered nonew programs. He searched for answersamong the resources of Black unity andthe unity of all labor. In the course of hisadvocacy of Black unity, as the directorof Special Research, he helped plan andattend the Pan-African Congress of 1945in Manchester, England, where he waselected the Intemational President. Hewas honored there as the "father of Pan-Africanism." Relatively, as a champion ofthe unity of all labor, especially the laborof colonials, Du Bois was extremely active.He held a conference in New York in 1945on colonial problems; he attacked as aconsultant in San Francisco the colonialplanks of the United Nations Charter, andhe wrote Color and Democracy: Coloniesand Peace (1945),the thesis of which wasan old one of his: free the colonies or else5

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there will still be imperial wars. He wasever the prophet.

Instead of adhering closely to the es-tablished ideology as an ideologue withthe NAACP,Du Bois increasingly becameidentified with the ideas of the "far left."His articles began appearing with regu-larity in Marxist periodicals. He was seenoften at luncheons and meetings withpersons who advocated Socialism. Somemade him guilty of radicalism byassocia-tion. At his last major speech before aNAACP convention in 1947, he showedclearly how hewas interested in Social ismand Communism as ideologies of libera-tion for all the poor, especially the Blackpoor of the world. Yet his views were notwinning adherents; these views made himmore of a leader with no disciples. In fact,when he advocated in 1948 that the NA-ACP support Henry A. Wallace, the Pro-gressive Party presidential candidateaccused of being a tool of the communists,the hierarchy of the NAACP forced hisresignation. He was becoming moreal ienated from the majority views of mostBlacks and Americans. He was less apragmatist in his post-World War II days.

Therefore, it was almost natural, whenDu Bois saw that most Blacks and theNAACP were not following his leads onAfrica and on Socialism, that in 1949 hebecame an official of the "leftist" Councilon African Affairs. In 1950, he ran unsuc-cessfu Ily for Senator of the United Statesfrom NewYorkon the American Labor Partyticket, at the age of 82. His ardent peacecampaign during the turbulent times ofSenator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) andthe Korean War caused him to suffer thepain and indignity of indictment, hand-cuffs, and acquittal in 1951 as an unreg-istered agent of a foreign country, theSoviet Union. He was considered so dan-gerous that his passport was revoked inorder to prevent him from attending theinauguration of the new African state ofGhana in 1957; he insisted on consistencyof his socialist views.

When Du Bois got his passport in 1958,he promptly went off to visit the Soviet

Union and sent to a meeting in Ghana aspeech in which he advocated Africanliberation through African Socialism. Onhis 91 st birthday, Du Bois had a party inPekinq, where he was highly praised. Herehe said allegedly that all his life he hadbeen nothing but a "nigger" in the UnitedStates. Du Bois did not mean to speak inpersonal terms; as he had often done, hemeant that the descendants of Africanshad been discriminated, exploited andoppressed as a racial entity. Apparentlyhe had found, after half a century, theideology of Black liberation.

By the middle of 1961, Du Bois hadmade two major decisions. "Capitalismcannot reform itself; it is doomed to de-struction. No universal selfishness canbring social good to all." With thesewords, Du Bois had made the first of thesetwo decisions; he joined openly the Com-munist Party of the United States in Octo-ber 1961. In his letter to Gus Hall, Du Boisrelated how, after long deliberation, hehad arrived at this conclusion. "Afterthe depression and the Second WorldWar, I was disillusioned." It was plain inhis letter that Du Bois had chosen to seekthe salvation of the Black race in broadsocial and economic terms. There wasvery little in his letter that focused directlyon the role of Communism as an ideologyof racial uplift. Raise the poor of the worldand the Blacks would be improved.

The second major decision Du Boismade in the last few years of his life washis acceptance of Ghanaian citizenship,after his migration there in late 1961 torenewwork on the Encyclopedia Africana.Ghana was then in the control of KwameNkrumah, a Pan-African student of DuBois. This decision indicated that Du Boishad found a home where the atmospherewas in harmony with his interests in theMarxist analysis of the Black condition. Ineffect, when Du Bois died in Ghana onAugust 27, 1963, the eve of the greatmarch on Washington, he had withdrawnin two ways from the American system,in ideology and in nationality.

The numerous ideologies of Black 25

liberation proposed by Du Bois help ex-plain why he has been called "para-doxical." Pragmatists are usually calledvery complex persons because they donot adhere dogmatically to one or severaleasily definable doctrinal positions. Yetat the last quarter of his life, Du Bois didmaintain some consistency in his desireto have Blacks use Socialism as theirideology. Still, the trail of the life of DuBois as an intellectual and literary revolu-tionary has been one of constantly seek-ing, searching, questioning, hoping tofind some means by which the lowly-especially the wretched Blacks of theearth-could be uplifted to dignity,equality and their rightful places in theorder of human societies.

The search Du Bois made is symboli-cally synonymous with that made by otherAfrican and Afro-American leaders intheir public statements and actions, andby many inarticulate Blacks in their ownprivate and nameless struggles for libera-tion, equality and dignity. 0

Clarence Contee, Ph.D. is an associate professorof history, Howard University.

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