"Hold Sacred Strong and Purposeful Art" W. E. B

Clark Atlanta University

"Hold sacred strong and purposeful art"Author(s): Phillip Luke Sinitiere Source: Phylon (1960-) , Vol. 56, No. 1, Special Volume: Remembering the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of W.E.B. Du Bois and the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr. (SUMMER 2019), pp. 156-179 Published by: Clark Atlanta University Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26743835

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“Hold sacred strong and purposeful art”: W. E. B. Du Bois and Poetry

Phillip Luke Sinitiere College of Biblical Studies-Houston

Abstract

Artist and writer Lorraine Hansberry spoke at a Carnegie Hall tribute event in February 1964 on what would have been W. E. B. Du Bois’s 96th birthday. He had died in Ghana the previous August. Hansberry’s speech considered the intellectual and social shape of Du Bois’s legacy. “I think his legacy bids us pay attention to the genuine needs of humankind and not to the frivolities which are the playthings of the parasites,” she said, and “to honor thought and thinking; to keep always as our counsel distinguished scholarship and hold sacred strong and purposeful art; such as beautifully crafted and humanly involved writing.” In reply to Hansberry’s counsel to “hold sacred strong and purposeful art,” this article explores W. E. B. Du Bois and poetry. The phrase “W. E. B. Du Bois and poetry” refers to two artistic dimensions of this idea. First, this article examines Du Bois’s relationship to poetry through his editorship at numerous journals, including The Crisis and Phylon. Second, it historicizes poetry about Du Bois written during his lifetime and after his death as a way to understand his legacy. Collectively, therefore, this article accounts for Du Bois’s intellectual production over time as a literary artist and curator alongside of the historical and cultural conditions that created poetic responses to it. Mapping out the historical contours of Du Bois and poetry produces greater understanding of his cultural legacy’s aesthetic significance from the horizon of his 150th birthday.

Du Bois was a social scientist and a political leader who considered art—especially literature— to be a vehicle for enunciating and effecting social, political, and economic ideas.

Darwin T. Turner (1974)

Introduction old. Ossie Davis, one of the event’s organizers, wished for the ceremony to high- At Carnegie Hall on February 23, light the “cultural significance of the 1964, on what would have been his most illustrious Afro American scholar 96th birthday, friends and supporters of our time” and creatively demonstrate gathered in a memorial service to honor “a proper sense of Dr. DuBois’ intel- the life and legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois. lectual contributions to American life” The esteemed Black scholar had died in (Souvenir Program 1964). Ghana the previous August at 95 years Several presenters at the commemo-

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ration mentioned Du Bois’s cultural and Du Bois written during his lifetime and aesthetic work, including noted histo- after his death. This essay does not ana- rian John Hope Franklin, who keynot- lyze Du Bois’s poetry itself, a dimension ed the gathering. A young playwright of his literary life that scholars have ex- named Sylvester Leaks staged “In These plored previously. Rather, it accounts My Words,” a performance about Du for his intellectual labor over time as Bois’s intellectual and cultural legacy, a literary artist, his efforts as a poetry and Eslanda Robeson, a radical activist curator, and it analyzes as cultural ar- and writer, delivered comments. Art- tifacts poems written about him. This ist and writer Lorraine Hansberry also article, therefore, is not about nor does spoke at the tribute event, who’s speech it produce literary criticism as such. It considered the intellectual and social covers the history of Du Bois’s intellec- shape of Du Bois’s legacy. “I think his tual production as a literary artist and legacy bids us pay attention to the genu- curator alongside of the historical and ine needs of humankind and not to the cultural conditions that created poetic frivolities which are the playthings of responses to it. Mapping out the his- the parasites,” she said, and “to honor torical contours of Du Bois and poetry thought and thinking; to keep always as produces greater understanding of his our counsel distinguished scholarship cultural legacy’s aesthetic significance and hold sacred strong and purpose- from the horizon of his 150th birthday. ful art; such as beautifully crafted and humanly involved writing” (Hansberry Part 1: Du Bois’s Literary Art 1964). Observing how previous generations Du Bois’s books and essays document commemorated anniversaries of Du that he believed deeply in the power, Bois’s life and legacy demonstrates not possibility, and beauty of language. He only the wide-ranging dimensions of enlisted art as a tool in his life-long in- his publications and work as an activist, surgency against White Supremacy. Af- but also the ways that scholars and art- ricana Studies scholar Reiland Rabaka ists created meaning from the expansive outlines the importance of undertaking record of his intellectual production. In a broader analysis of Du Bois’s aesthet- reply to Hansberry’s counsel to “hold ics. He writes that “a truly comprehen- sacred strong and purposeful art,” this sive understanding of Du Bois simply article explores W. E. B. Du Bois and po- cannot be gained without engaging him etry. The phrase “W. E. B. Du Bois and as an artist and, even more, as an art- poetry” refers to two artistic dimensions ist who was in constant dialogue with, of this idea. First, this article examines influenced by, and incessantly influ- Du Bois’s relationship to poetry through encing other artists” (Rabaka 2014, 42). his editorship at The Crisis and Phylon, The intellectual benefit of studying Du journals with which he was associated Bois and aesthetics is on the one hand a during the first half of the twentieth question of historiography. On the oth- century. Second, as a way to understand er hand, as Rabaka points out, under- his legacy, it historicizes poetry about standing Du Bois as one of the foremost

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scholars of cross-disciplinary practice Rusert term the “aesthetics of the color spotlights both his capacious creativ- line” (2018, 16). ity and the legacy of liberation encoded On the occasion of his 150th birth- within his aesthetic interventions. day, this essay insists on remembering Du Bois often discussed literary art Du Bois’s literary artistry as a historian- through the lens of propaganda. The poet. Literary scholar Keith Byerman most well-known commentary on this comments in Seizing the Word: History, conviction appeared in his 1926 Cri- Art, and Self in the Work of W. E. B. Du sis essay “Criteria of Negro Art.” He Bois that Du Bois’s poetry prioritized argued that as propaganda art is a re- “the truth content of literature” which source upon which artists draw to com- resulted in “putting words together in municate with beauty and creativity the certain conventional sound and im- truth that Black people are human be- age combinations” (1994, 108, 110). ings. Relatedly, he insisted that artistic Literary historian Arnold Rampersad, communication across modalities of ex- on the other hand, points to Du Bois’s pression underwrote an aesthetics of re- “poetic reverence for the word” in The sistance. Du Bois reasoned that the vari- Art and Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois. ous forms protest and propaganda took Such artistic obsession translated into should reckon creatively yet insurgent- centering the imagination as a vehicle ly with White Supremacy’s anti-Black not only for self-expression, but also for obsessions (Du Bois 1926; Kirschke and creatively resisting racism and White Sinitiere 2014). Supremacy. Rampersad writes that Du The currency of his 1926 article con- Bois’s poetry “gave voice to his private textually connects to the Harlem Renais- thoughts” and spotlighted “the depth sance. However, the larger question of of his soul-searching and the dignity of art, aesthetics, and propaganda was an his motives.” He further states that Du inquiry over which Du Bois poured for Bois’s creative work “extend[ed] the the entirety of his career. Propaganda at range of his public expression” that ap- its best translated qualitative social sci- peared more frequently in scholarly and ence, scholarship, and historical inter- journalistic forums (1990, ix, 104, 109). pretation into creative, innovative, aes- Echoing Rampersad, historian Herbert thetic expressions accessible to public Aptheker contended that “Du Bois’s po- audiences (Du Bois 1935; Du Bois 1944; etry welled up from his sense of outrage Johnson and Johnson 1991; Hutchin- at oppression and injustice” that it “al- son 1995; Beavers 2000; Williams 2014; ways conveys an intensity of emotion, Kirschke and Sinitiere 2014). Yet the and at its best, has a potent impact” life of art was never just a theoreti- (1985, xi). Mary Young’s summary of cal consideration about the promise or Du Bois’s poetry reveals the wide pur- peril of propaganda. Du Bois explored chase of its capacity. She tracked the ex- the problem of the color line by writ- tensive range of subjects that his poetry ing across multiple genres, including addressed, from gender disparity and science fiction, robustly engaged with racism to economic inequality and reli- what Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Britt gion to show how he used poetic forms

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to assault oppression’s multiple mani- waves of Oppression, Misery and Woe festations. “He created a body of poet- which engulfed his people” (Nkruma ry,” Young explains, “that should not be 1964, 5). Graham Du Bois’s Introduc- allowed to languish in obscurity or be tion commented that Du Bois’s poems a footnote to his other writings” (2001, “are not written as lyrical entities, but 166-68). Along with books and essays they must be seen as passionate outcries by Ronald Judy, Robert Gooding-Wil- which demand the beat of rhythm, the liams, and a host of other works, such cadence of song and the flow of deep summaries of Du Bois’s aesthetic imagi- waters” (Graham Du Bois 1964, 9). nation reveal both the approach he took To date, while some of Du Bois’s po- to poetic formulation and some of his ems are anthologized in accessible col- literary production’s content (Andrews lections such as David Levering Lewis’s 1985; Bloom 2001; Judy 1994; Sundquist W. E. B. Du Bois: A Reader (1995) and to 1996; Posnock 1998; Gooding-Williams a lesser extent the Freedomways maga- 2011; Amin 2014; Bromell 2018; Akassi zine volume Black Titan: W. E. B. Du Bois 2018; Zamir 2008; Gilman and Wein- (1970), co-edited by John Henrik Clarke, baum 2007). Esther Jackson, Ernest Kaiser, and Jack Du Bois wrote verse over the course O’Dell, the most complete collection of his entire life. A few of his most well- of his verse appeared in Herbert Ap- known and most anthologized poems theker’s 1985 volume Creative Writings include “A Litany for Atlanta” (1906), by W. E. B. Du Bois: A Pageant, Poems, “The Song of the Smoke” (1907), “My Short Stories, and Playlets, an important Country ‘Tis of Thee” (1907), and from book that has long been out of print. A his later years “Ghana Calls” (1962). significant amount of Du Bois’s poetry Other important late career poems in- remains unpublished, however. The clude “The United Nations” (ca. 1945), digital version of Du Bois’s papers at “The Rosenbergs” (1953), “Suez” (1956) the University of Massachusetts Am- and “War” (1952)—the latter of which herst houses poems such as “The First appeared in Du Bois’s McCarthy-era Snow” (1890), “Striving” (1892), “Nina” memoir In Battle for Peace: The Story of (1895), and “A Folk-Song” (1896), verse My 83rd Birthday—pieces that creatively about nature, kinship, culture, and his- responded to major world events of the tory that offer literary windows into mid-20th century. The year after Du Bois the musings of Du Bois’s early days as died, his widow the writer Shirley Gra- an emerging intellectual and scholar. ham Du Bois collected and published A draft of “The Passing of Douglass” Selected Poems by W. E. B. Du Bois with (1895) is a particularly striking tribute to the newly established Ghana Universi- the freedom fighter’s life and influence. ties Press. Ghanaian President and Du Unpublished pieces from his twilight Bois disciple Kwame Nkrumah wrote decades such as “The Crime of Com- the Foreword. He described his men- munists” (1958) and “John McManus” tor’s verse as “the eloquent expressions (1961) present the work of an artist ap- of a sensitive Fighter Poet who for three- plying his craft to events from a differ- quarters of a century struggled against ent season of life in which liberation re-

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mained a central preoccupation. point of Du Bois analyzing history from As a liberal arts intellectual, Du Bois the present’s horizon. “It would not be routinely included poems and poetic implausible to describe Suppression as statements in his narrative books. His an allegory of Du Bois’s present . . . In practice of creating aesthetic apostro- writing about the failed efforts to end phes sometimes headlined his books, the slave trade, he no doubt was also while in other works they appeared thinking about the incomplete project throughout, or at the end of the text. of abolition and the state of peonage in The poems coupled with musical bars which the overwhelming majority of that serve as epigraphs in The Souls of [B]lack southerners lived . . . An oscil- Black Folk are the best-known example lation between expectancy and disap- of this practice, as well as the book’s pointment defined the arc ofSuppression “The Forethought” and “Afterthought” (Hartman 2007, xxix). scripts (Miles 2000; Weheliye 2000; Sto- The literary reflection with which Du ever 2015, 2016; Wall 2005; Rath 1997). Bois concluded this book allowed him Du Bois began this practice of liter- to rescript historical analysis of slavery’s ary gesture, however, with his first book afterlife with the immediate, contempo- Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, rary urgency of a moral imperative. published in 1896. A concluding sec- Du Bois’s 1920 book Darkwater exem- tion titled “The Lesson for Americans” plifies most superbly this kind of aes- summarized the book’s historiographic thetic arrangement. In this text Du Bois contribution and offered an ethical take- featured “A Litany at Atlanta” as well as away refracted through the lens of the “A Hymn to the Peoples,” verse written history in which he was then living (i.e., for the First Universal Race Congress in Jim Crow, Plessy v. Ferguson, etc.). Du 1911. According to V. P. Franklin’s Living Bois wrote: Our Stories, Telling Our Truths, Du Bois’s It behooves the United States, there- coupling of poetry with historical narra- fore, in the interest both of scientific tive constitutes a form of autobiography, truth and of future social reform, a Du Boisian poetics of self-expression carefully to study such chapters of (1995, 223-74). Some of Du Bois’s other her history as that of the suppres- books, particularly those from his lat- sion of the slave-trade. The most ter decades such as Black Reconstruction, obvious question which this study feature similar aesthetic sensibilities suggests is: How far in a State can that fuse poetic scheduling with histori- a recognized moral wrong safely cal exposition, what James Ford III calls be compromised? . . . From this we his “interminable analysis” (2018, 102). may conclude that it behooves na- Another example is in Du Bois’s 1947 tions as well as men to do things at text The World and Africa. It concludes the very moment when they ought with a poetic re-statement of the book’s to be done (Du Bois 1896, 136- themes of history and freedom titled 137). “The Message.” In the context of writing about Africa’s history and Africa’s pres- Saidiya Hartman comments on the

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ent at the post-colonial moment of 1947, relations . . . and reclaim[ed] through Du Bois’s aesthetic apostrophe re-artic- art and literature the status of [B]lack ulated what was at stake on the conti- Americans” (Wilson 1999, xix-xxv). nent and for African-descended people While the space of this article does not of the Diaspora (Du Bois 1947). Nahum allow for a full chronicling of the verse Dimitri Chandler calls this text “a kind that Du Bois shepherded into print for of epigraphic afterthought,” a “repas- The Crisis—recall also that Du Bois de- sage” of Du Bois’s main argument from pended upon the opinion, intellect, and The World and Africa (2013, 99). labor of the writer Jessie Redmon Fauset While on balance Du Bois’s poetic who worked as the magazine’s chief lit- output is smaller compared to other erary editor during the 1920s—a short genres in which he wrote, the archive reflection he published in 1951 titled of his published and unpublished po- “Editing The Crisis” relates aspects of ems coupled with his practice of literary his editorial approach for the NAACP’s apostrophe remains worthy of attention. magazine. On this literary platform for Collectively, such artistry bears literary, Harlem Renaissance-era aesthetic pro- intellectual, and cultural witness to his duction he sought to assemble a broad creative attempts at documenting the range of commentary about Black life, ordinariness of Black life and textual- gather domestic and international news, izing liberation in an effort to eradicate effectively use images of Black people White Supremacy. in response to White Supremacy’s anti- Black propaganda, and give a special Part 2: Du Bois as Poetry Curator place to art and culture, including lots of poetry and short fiction. One vantage point from which to Langston Hughes’s relationship with consider Du Bois as a poetry curator is The Crisis illustrates its aesthetic signifi- to encounter the hundreds of poems he cance for the life of Black artists. In 1921, chose to publish in the periodicals he he published his first poem “The Negro edited: Moon, The Horizon, The Crisis, Speaks of Rivers” in the magazine as The Brownies’ Book, and Phylon. As schol- a teenage student (Hughes 1921). The ars document, his work as editor of The national circulation of Hughes’s poem Crisis offers the most extensive docu- became the foundation of a long and mentary record with which to explore fruitful, if not at times controversial, this claim. Du Bois’s 24-year tenure at literary career. In 1941, he sent to Du the magazine was the longest of all the Bois a commemorative letter on the periodicals he edited (Yellin 1971; Dza- 20-year anniversary of his poem’s ap- nouni, Dantec-Lowry, and Parfait 2016). pearance in The Crisis. “I send you my Furthermore, according to literary edi- gratitude and continued admiration,” tor Sondra Kathryn Wilson the status he wrote (Hughes 1941, 1). Reflecting in of The Crisis as a central repository of the 1960s about his first encounter with Harlem Renaissance art “provoked Du Bois’s periodical, he recalled “My both the production of a body of [B]lack earliest memories of written words are literature and the improvement of race those of Du Bois and the Bible. My ma-

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ternal grandmother . . . read to me as a publish” (Du Bois to Robinson 1924, 1). child from both the Bible and The Cri- Seven months later, Du Bois’s reply to sis.” Commenting about the appearance Jessie Hathcock of Dayton, Ohio stated of his early poems on the pages of The that her poems possessed some quality, Crisis, Hughes observed, “It seems as if, but repetition across stanzas revealed one way or another, I knew Dr. Du Bois that her verse needed improvement. all my life. Through his work, he be- “Poetry, you know, is infinite labor,” came part of my life” (Hughes 1970, 8). he wrote (Du Bois to Hathcock 1925, 1). While the publication of poetry from Similarly, Du Bois replied to Alta Davis artists with a national profile offers the in the fall of 1925 with encouragement most visible sense of Du Bois’s work as to hone her craft and read Palgrave’s a poetry curator, extensive correspon- poetry volume closely. “Commit some dence between the 1920s and 1940s with parts of it to memory,” he told her. “The potential contributors to The Crisis pres- writing of poetry is a long and difficult ents an additional vantage point from task” (Du Bois to Davis 1925, 1). which to view his curatorial imagina- Between November 1925 and the tion and literary practice as editor. In summer of 1926, Du Bois kept an ex- some cases, only Du Bois’s reply to au- tensive correspondence with Harlem thors exists in the archival record; such Renaissance artist and fiction writer letters sometimes reveal a great deal Maude Irwin Owens. The two first met about the literary submission and Du at a National Urban League function Bois’s evaluation of it. In other cases, a in New York City in 1925. Three years wider conversation takes place in mul- later Du Bois published her short story tiple letters over several months’ time, “Bathesda of Sinners Run” in The Crisis and therefore the literary shape of his (Hill 2014). curatorial efforts is easier to reconstruct. Some of Owens’s early poems em- Several cases of one-sided correspon- ployed dialect sequences, which she dence present how Du Bois evaluated quickly abandoned in favor of send- poetry, and counseled would-be poets to ing other samples of her poetry for Du improve their craft. In October 1924, he Bois’s assessment. He saw promise in returned poems to William D. Robinson her poetry, but “on the whole they are of Columbia, South Carolina with the not good,” he stated emphatically in a encouragement to “keep continually at January 3, 1926 letter. “They need more it” and “form your taste by reading the work and careful polishing . . . They need best examples of good poetry.” Du Bois thought and pruning and especially a recommended a close reading of Francis larger vocabulary” (Du Bois to Owens T. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of English 1926a, 1). Unlike Du Bois’s other poetry Songs and Lyrics—“steep yourself in it” correspondents, despite his frank evalu- he told Robinson—a then standard col- ation of Owens’s work his letters to her lection of verse in the English language offered extensive reflections on form first published in 1861. “I think your and rhythm and detailed suggestions poems have some merit,” he concluded, for improvement. He commented about “but they are not yet good enough to specific lines in the poems she sent him,

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praising her verse when “there is some- likely disclosed practices he adopted in thing of fine poetic feeling” in it. Similar the making of his own creative work. to other aspiring poets, he encouraged He made a comment along these lines her to continue writing and to “buy to Alfred Harcourt in late 1934 as he ne- a library of the best poetry, about ten gotiated additional time to finish edits volumes, and to read them and re-read on Black Reconstruction. “My method of them. Commit speciments [sic] of them writing is a method of ‘after thoughts,’” to memory” (Du Bois to Ibid 1926a, 1). he explained to Harcourt. “I mean that To expand the linguistic dimensions of after all the details of commas, periods, her poetry, Du Bois told Owens to con- spelling and commas, there comes the sult a dictionary in order to find alter- final and to me the most important work native words and phrases that possess of polishing and resetting and even “delicate little shades of meaning differ- re-stating. This is the crowning of my ent from the word which you are used creative process” (Du Bois to Harcourt to, which might or might not catch the 1934, 18). While Du Bois’s description exact shade of meaning which would of his creative crowning was not about turn your prose into poetry” (Du Bois to poetry as such—although verse ended Ibid 1926b, 1). each chapter in Black Reconstruction Throughout the 1930s and 1940s po- (2007)—it nevertheless demonstrates ets continued to solicit writing advice the thought he put into not only editing from Du Bois. While typically the cor- but also the curatorial habits of creativ- respondence during these years was not ity he employed. as extensive as his letters with Owen, he Occasionally authors invited Du Bois nevertheless delivered frank opinions to endorse their work by writing prefa- on poetry and always included encour- tory comments. These reflections, while agement to press forward in writing, more indirect than an editorial program reading, or if possible further literary or private correspondence, provide ad- education through formal schooling. ditional indicators of his poetic opinion. For example, in an August 1, 1945 re- For example, in 1922 Du Bois wrote the ply to Helen Brown of Chicago, Du Bois Foreword to Georgia Douglas Johnson’s wrote that “Poetry is seldom a matter volume Bronze: A Book of Verse (1922), of sudden inspiration. Rather, it arises her second book of poetry. At the time from hard work in reading or observa- she was a leading figure of the Harlem tion and endless care in writing” (Du Renaissance as both a writer and mentor Bois to Brown 1945, 1). whose famous Saturday evening salons The time Du Bois took to counsel in her Washington, D. C. home inspired poets across several decades of cor- and shaped New Negro art (Roberts respondence reveals a certain kind of 2012; Hull 1987; McHenry 2002). For intellectual investment he made for Du Bois, Bronze represented the strug- the possibility of aesthetic production. gles and triumphs of African American Studied opinion about “poetic feeling” women generally. Johnson’s compel- coupled with practical advice to con- ling poetry “tells a life history, or even tinuously write, study, and read poetry paints the history of a generation,” he

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stated in the Foreword. The individual artists have continued to respond cre- expressions of “feeling” and “apprehen- atively to his life and legacy, including sion” disclosed in the poems rendered innovate forms in hip-hop and on Twit- her art “singularly sincere and true, ter. and as a revelation of the soul struggle In the February 1918 issue of The Cri- of the women of a race it is invaluable” sis, Du Bois editorialized that his 50th (Du Bois 1922, 135). Du Bois’s commen- birthday was on the horizon, and that tary on Johnson’s work illustrates an “he would be glad on this occasion to appreciation for poetic language and have a word from each of his friends” the beauty of cultural communication (Du Bois 1918, 163). In the same issue, along with an emphasis on art’s role the magazine’s business manager Au- in the telling and re-telling of history. gustus Granville Dill asked readers to While he understood the power that the register their appreciation and respect immediacy of poetry held, in the Fore- for Du Bois by enlisting one addition- word he commented favorably upon al Crisis subscriber (Dill 1918). Dill’s the longitudinal shape and historical shrewd calculus delivered an increase consciousness within which Johnson’s in the periodical’s circulation, and cou- Black poetics operated. pled with Du Bois’s request produced a Du Bois’s curatorial efforts of pub- significant number of poetic congratula- lishing others’ poetry, corresponding tions in honor of his birthday. with aspiring poets, and endorsing po- Crisis contributor and World War I etry unveils the range of ways that he Army veteran Lucian B. Watkins sub- engaged this particular art form outside mitted “To Dr. W. E. Burghardt Du of crafting his own verse. The practical Bois.” The 36-line poem is full of refer- aesthetics of Du Bois’s literary curation ences to war, combat, survival, and the presents fresh dimensions of where po- potential of future promises. “Through etry resided on his intellectual map, and the earth-made hells your soul has how he took great care to craft knowl- beamed/High faith above the battle edge of both language and history. scarred—/Though battle-scarred and bruised and torn,/We hear your poet- Part 3: Literary Art about Du Bois bugle sweet,” he wrote. Watkins alluded to the Great War and connected fighting This portion of the article assesses for democracy abroad to the history of Du Bois and poetry through an exami- slavery at home (“Who lived through nation of verse composed about him. Bondage and its chain/Two sorrowful Several historical junctures produced centuries of Fate”). He configured Du powerful literary responses: his 50th Bois as a “seer” and race symbol who and 60th birthdays in 1918 and 1928, understood it all. “When you lie silent, respectively; the federal anticommunist ‘Dust to dust’/The mortal ‘you’ that we repression he endured throughout his now face,” concluded Watkins, “The 1951 loyalty trial during McCarthyism; YOU immortal in your trust/Will live and the occasion of his death in August and move – A RISEN RACE!” (Wat- 1963. Beyond these particular moments kins to Du Bois 1918, 1). Similarly, Tal-

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ladega College minister and military narrative to render Du Bois as a “voice” chaplain Clifford L. Miller invoked Du and “light” in the wilderness. She pre- Bois’s cosmic significance using biblical sented him as a Black leader directing metaphors. He referred to Du Bois as a the race as a “North Star . . . Proud and “Joshua” whose guidance “has brought unbowed” whose words and deeds us across Jordan’s banks/Now, into “yield[ed] naught/Of our high heri- Democracy’s Promised Land.” Miller’s tage, in deed or thought” (Clifford to confidence in “faith fresh and strong” Du Bois 1928). coupled with “a vision clear and sweet” A decade later on the campus of At- presented Du Bois as “a light unto our lanta University where the school cel- feet” (Miller to Du Bois 1918, 1). Ken- ebrated Du Bois’s 70th birthday, his col- tucky writer, educator, and poet Joseph league and accomplished poet William Cotter’s short poem also sounded Du Stanley Braithwaite penned “For the Bois’s symbolic, global significance. In Seventieth Birthday of William Edward reply to White Supremacy’s violence, Burghardt Du Bois.” As a [B]lack Shake- he wrote that The Souls of Black Folk con- speare, the “glow” of Du Bois’s work fidently “hurls the thunder-word” (Cot- produced “his hot passions” that acted ter 1918, 1). as “a piercing lance/Rending the Veil, While Du Bois’s editorial call virtu- to set the spirit free/Of Black Folk wing- ally guaranteed the receipt of such su- ing to Equality!” His aesthetic “gifts,” perlative poetry in appreciation of his Braithwaite described, “patterned . . . career milestones, it is nevertheless sig- literature afresh” and crafted “art made nificant that in some cases noted Black luminous with pride” (Braithwaite intellectuals and literary figures com- 1938). memorated his 50th birthday. Further- Praise for his editorial work on The more, the ensuing cultural stock Du Crisis and how his wide reporting of Bois would lose only months later in the Black life brought the world to readers summer of 1918 with the publication of meant that for many Du Bois was both his accommodationist “Close Ranks” a key figure during the Harlem Renais- column about African American sup- sance and a guiding light for the race. port for the U.S. efforts in World War I As he moved into the second phase of and the simultaneous Pan-African work his career after leaving the NAACP in he was carrying out for Black liberation 1934, he marked 70 years with fanfare makes the birthday poetry all the more and poetry while glancing back toward interesting (Lewis 1993; Williams 2018). meritorious accomplishment. On the occasion of Du Bois’s 60th While supporters continued to poeti- birthday, Harlem Renaissance poet, cally reflect on Du Bois’s intellectual in- women’s movement organizer and fa- fluences across society, as the Cold War cilitator, Niagara Movement activist, dawned in the late 1940s recognition NAACP member, and Crisis and Brown- of his work materialized as recrimina- ies’ Book contributor Carrie Williams tion and persecution. In February 1951, Clifford wrote “The Torch Bearer.” Her the federal government arrested Du poem drew upon the biblical exodus Bois and several of his colleagues who

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worked with the Peace Information on earth, our fight shall never cease” Center, an organization committed to (Bond to Du Bois 1951, 1). anti-nuclear activism. Severe anticom- Immediately after the indictment munist repression of the McCarthy era American literary icon Eve Merriam motivated the arrests, which resulted in deployed nature imagery to depict the an indictment for failing to register as strength of Du Bois’s political convic- a foreign agent. After making bail, Du tions as a “freedom tree” and a “topmost Bois spent the next nine months on lec- tower of peace,” a moral fastidiousness ture tours to raise money for legal costs, which was no match for “the lyncher’s testify for peace, and otherwise publi- knife nor the bayonet greased by gold.” cize his case. Surprisingly, in November She imagined his supporters “with our Du Bois and his Peace Information Cen- hands in working brotherhood” would ter associates were acquitted. However, create a “green archway to the future,” as In Battle for Peace stated, not all Black thus ending on a note of possibility radicals, socialists, and communists es- (Merriam to Du Bois 1951). caped McCarthy’s dragnet. Although Pacifica radio journalist and activ- many friends wilted in the fierce heat ist William Mandel penned “people’s of the Cold War’s anticommunist ob- poetry” in a piece titled “My Children sessions, Du Bois reaped an outpour- Thank You” composed after the No- ing of support in the United States and vember acquittal. In rhymed verse he from across the world, some of it in the paid tribute to peace activism while rec- form of poetry (Horne 1986; Lewis 2000; ognizing the reality of FBI surveillance. Marable 2005; Porter 2010; Alexander He commented on anticommunists by 2015; Mullen 2016). citing curbs to free speech, all issues After Du Bois’s February indictment, with which Du Bois’s trial intersected. Nat Bond of Durham, North Carolina, In concrete language Mandel wrote of who chaired the local Du Bois defense how the U. S. government “dragged” committee, sent him an 8-stanza poem, Du Bois “to court, and locked the door/ “To W. E. B.—From the People.” Each His wrists they bound in iron bands/ new stanza began with “W. E. B.” Bond because they feared the mighty hands/ placed Du Bois—a “Bard of Freedom”— that wrote in verse and prose and law.” within a broad roster of American po- Voicing the power of political solidarity, litical heroes (e.g., Thomas Paine, Ralph Mandel acknowledged, “Their voices Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, etc.), resounded from shore to shore/and but specified his relationship to Black mounted to a single roar/of mighty history. “Through your life the deeds of protest. And with them join/the voices Douglass reign/In your voice, we hear of workers, farmers, and white of skin.” so clear/The quiet rush of Harriet’s He concluded with communitarian con- Freedom Train.” Bond gave Du Bois viction: “DuBois is free! And that, my the last word. He rhetorically reversed children, means freedom for me” (Man- the slavers’ “dreams of death” by con- del to Du Bois 1951). necting the imagery of dawn’s light to Creative gestures of gratitude for his “morning’s glow as in your voice glows life’s work as freedom fighter sustained

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Du Bois’s spirits during the 1950s. And tion concludes with an expression that interestingly, while it does not address Du Bois embodies “freedom’s passion, anti-Blackness and anticommunism like refined and organized.” Although writ- Merriam and Mandel’s pieces do, Dud- ten many years before her 1964 speech, ley Randall’s well-known 1952 poem Hansberry’s poem exemplified her call “Booker T. and W. E. B.”—a poem clear- to “hold sacred strong and purposeful ly sympathetic to Du Bois’s philosophy art” (Hansberry 1953; Perry 2018; Lynn of protest versus Washington’s empha- 2018; Sinitiere 2019). sis on industrial education—appeared The tradition of commemorative at this historical juncture (Randall 1952; poetry in the wake of one’s passing ac- Rowell and Randall 1976; Boyd 2004). knowledges the milestones of one’s life. While the subjectivity of anticommu- It enacts a process of historical memory nist repression possessed a burden that making and the construction of legacy. Black radicals like Du Bois bore, moral Legacy poems aesthetically passed Du support in poetic form lightened the Bois’s freedom torch to the next genera- weight of federal scrutiny and offered tion. Lytt Gardner wrote “On the Death meaningful solidarity. of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois,” noting the “fit- About a decade before Lorraine ting irony” that he died on the eve of Hansberry’s Carnegie Hall speech on the March on Washington. Now in the Du Bois’s legacy, she took his semi- “honored company” of the ancestors, nar on African history at the Jefferson the poem read, “You would rest well in School of Social Science, a Communist Ghana’s soil tonight” (Gardner 1963, 1). Party USA-affiliated worker’s academy Eugene Perkins’s Negro Digest poem “In in New York City. The inspiration she Memory of Du Bois” called the Black felt from his teaching and from being scholar a “Titan” who “stood tall as in his presence produced an untitled the pyramids/Even the rivers sung his poetic reflection that she wrote on the deeds.” His verbal “elegance” shaped inside cover of her copy of his 1939 history and “his words stirred moun- book Black Folk: Then and Now. While tains” (Perkins 1963, 64-5). Similarly, she could easily and freely converse in an untitled piece in Black Titan, poet with Du Bois in person, there is power- Elma Stuckey praised “the fierceness of ful aesthetic symmetry through her act his truth” and imagined Du Bois’s free- of inscribing her own words on the in- dom dreams as “a fuse exploding into side cover of her copy of Du Bois’s text. light” (Stuckey 1970: 39). On the one- The first word of Hansberry’s poem is year anniversary of Du Bois’s death, “Imagine.” She invites the reader into his widow published a poem of longing Du Bois’s classroom. She describes the and expectation. Also like Stuckey she blue suit he’s wearing, how “his back used “light” metaphorically to envision [is] against the sunlight of the May af- his life’s work of freedom fighting. Shir- ternoons.” She’s moved by his “relaxing ley Graham Du Bois invested her grief [B]lack . . . full and/confident in his vast with purpose in the extension of Du knowledge and his splendid sense/of Bois’s political and intellectual legacy. interpretation of history.” Her medita- “Farewell! No sound of idle mourn-

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ing let there be/To shudder this full historical symbols of people who might silence—save the voice/of children— be associated with the Talented Tenth. little children white and [B]lack/Whis- However, rather than a theory of elite pering the deed I tried to do for them” leadership who parts opportunity’s wa- (Graham Du Bois 1964, 5). ters so everyone else can pass through, in “Ali” Baraka defined Talented Tenth Part 4: Poetry About Du Bois as “service for the good of others.” Lyri- in the Present cally, his album explores the concept of double consciousness, and the record The contemporary generation of po- took a deep dive into history with ex- ets and artists continue to find Du Bois plorations of slavery, Reconstruction, meaningful and controversial, a Black Jim Crow, capitalism, segregation, inte- intellectual whose work and aesthetic gration, class consciousness, and edu- witness remains of paramount signifi- cation, among many other topics. The cance. In addition to poems in print, song “Jim Crow” addresses the subject rappers prominently feature Du Bois’s of its title, especially as it relates to be- name and ideas and a poet on Twitter ing Black in predominately white Chris- used the social media platform to inven- tian spaces, what he likens to “swim- tively curate verses about history and ming through bleach” (Baraka 2013; culture. Teutsch 2017). To “Wash my brain from On example from hip-hop is Atlanta- some of the things that race taught,” based artist, writer, activist, and rap- Baraka draws on historical references per Sho Baraka. He released a concept that center Black history in an interna- album Talented 10th in 2013 (Lions and tional framework (“I am the invisible Liars Music), the year that marked the man . . . from an invisible land”) from 50th anniversary of Du Bois’s death. His the vantage point of Du Bois’s work album drew its inspiration from an ex- (“Ain’t much Booker T when you look pansive study of Black history, includ- at me/But a whole lot of Du Bois making the writings of Frederick Douglass ing noise.”). and Du Bois. In an interview on the Aesthetically, the album’s cover visu- Wado-O radio show around the time of alizes “Talented Xth” with textual por- the album’s debut, Baraka explained, tions from the “Talented Tenth” essay as “I’ve always loved W.E.B. Du Bois and background. The portion most visible Frederick Douglass, and I started read- comes from the essay’s final paragraph ing books about them and the struggle in which Du Bois explains, “Education of slavery, post-slavery and the African and work are the levers to uplift a peo- American plight. Then I stumbled upon ple. Work alone will not do it unless in- Du Bois’ [concept of the] Talented 10th spired by the right ideals and guided by . . . and it spoke exactly to where I am” intelligence. Education must not simply (McIntosh 2013). teach work—it must teach Life. The Tal- Baraka’s track list—songs with ti- ented Tenth of the Negro race must be tles like “Mahalia,” “Denzel,” “Ali,” made leaders of thought and missionar- “King,” and “Cliff & Clair”—assembles ies of culture among their people” (Du

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Bois 1903, 242). Finally, Baraka’s ref- There were a number of references erences to Malcolm X throughout the to his iconic phrases such as “double record reconfigures the album cover’s consciousness” and “the Veil.” And a “X” to function as an artistic provoca- handful of tweets versified the Niagara tion that symbolizes resistance to White Movement, the NAACP, Black Recon- Supremacy, an aesthetic Black fist raised struction, and Du Bois’s late career move for the listener to see, learn, and under- to Ghana. The content tended to empha- stand. size the more well-rehearsed aspects of Turning to Twitter, another unique Du Bois’s 95 years, specifically his con- example of poetry about Du Bois com- flict with Booker T. Washington, and menced with poet Clint Smith’s inau- his service to the NAACP. In this way guration of #DuBoisBars, a collection of #DuBoisBars mimics Du Bois scholar- crowdsourced Twitter poems that mate- ship in that many studies privilege his rialized in the summer of 2016. He start- earlier career up to 1934 when he left ed the project somewhat playfully with the NAACP. However, resonant with a reference to Du Bois and Booker T. newer strands of Du Bois studies that Washington: “Booker T you a fool/the look at the latter half of his life, tweets Atlanta Compromise was trash/I’m the addressed late career developments like man you can’t mess with my handlebar his growing commitment to Marxism, mustache.” Smith’s innovative hashtag his commingling of anti-colonialism drew on his own reading of Du Bois as and Pan-Africanism, and the meaning an intellectual who rejected rigid disci- of his move to Ghana. plinary silos; understanding Du Bois al- In addition to hip-hop and Twitter, lowed him to “more confidently reject in recent years, individual poems about this compartmentalization.” About Du Du Bois by Lucille Clifton, Jim Murphy, Bois’s work in different fields of inquiry, Tara Betts, Evie Shockley, and Elizabeth Smith observed, “Seeing a scholar oper- Alexander have addressed many facets ate across so many different spaces—to of his life, his writings, and his intel- have myriad intellectual projects con- lectual and cultural significance (Mur- tribute to his broader political project. phy 2009; Betts 2014; Shockley 2015; I really resonate with that” (Avecdeo Alexander 2010). For example, in Clif- 2016). ton’s book Quilting she rescripts corre- Over a week’s time, Smith’s inaugu- spondence Du Bois carried out in 1905 ral Twitter-verse prompted a flurry of about the emotional landscape of Black re-tweets, a fascinating digital archive people, specifically whether or not they of approximately 60 poems about Du cry. After quoting Alvin Borgquest’s re- Bois, and dozens of emoji’s that ex- quest, Clifton reimagines Du Bois’s an- pressed praise and approval. Many of swer that invoked both individual and the rhymes addressed the Washington- collective African American experience. Du Bois protest vs. accommodation “He do/she do” opens the 17-line po- paradigm, while others commented etic reply. It ends with “they do” repeat- upon Du Bois’s educational attainment, ed three times. In between the lines of scholarly production, and sociology. “do,” Clifton lists the verbs “live, love,

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try, tire, flee, fight, bleed, break, moan, Burghardt’s death: “Unnatural/when mourn, weep, die” experiences that ex- babies pitter patter/to paradise beyond press embodiment and the materiality parenting” (3). Staton-Taiwo also per- of Black life (Clifton 2000; Borgquest sonifies Nina’s disregard for Du Bois’s to Du Bois 1905; Du Bois to Borgquest physical and emotional preference for 1905). Shirley Graham Du Bois: “Shirley’s While individual poems about Du shadow blocked/the sunshine I should Bois lyrically capture different dimen- have sensed/but I tasted first . . . Shir- sions of his work, Sandra Staton-Taiwo’s ley/overshadowed all” (10-11). Broad Sympathies in a Narrow World: The What Du Bois lacked, or failed to Legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois (2018) presents sufficiently cultivate, in the relation- a volume of 50 poems that reflect on the al realm, Staton-Taiwo highlights the full 95-year arc of his life. Published in ways that he excelled in the cultural 2018 to coincide with the 150th anni- sphere by planting “freedom seeds of versary of his birth, the book wrestles memory” through intellectual practice with his legacy in the historical present. (45). The volume’s signature poem, Organized according to different disci- “Broad Sympathies,” explains how his plinary headings (e.g., political science, “words soared/like flying swords/ philosophy, literary criticism, econom- across a multitude of sympathies/broad ics, etc.), Staton-Taiwo lyrically explores enough to trouble the land,” work that his experiences as a student, a father, a ultimately “mixe[s] the disciplines” by spouse, an activist, a professor, and a “dividing divisions/and yet/uniting freedom dreamer. She explains that her difference” (59). About his books and own life experiences and her interest scholarship on African American his- in Du Bois’s scholarship and intellec- tory, she states that he “stamped aboli- tual productivity, particularly narrated tion/across the pages/with codes like through the biographies of David Le- quilts to freedom” (19). In “Black Man” vering Lewis and the writings of Wilson Du Bois is the scholar who “taught Jeremiah Moses, inspired Broad Sympa- the world to be set free,” and who’s thies in a Narrow World (Sinitiere 2018). “pen struck thoughts, like lightening” The first suite of poems inBroad Sym- through voluminous “paper-trails of pathies in a Narrow World interrogates Du publishing” (30, 87, 63). His journalis- Bois’s emotional and physical distance tic work presented “The record/of the from his first wife Nina and daughter darker races” that “serves/as testimony Yolande, complicated dynamics that against the hypocrites/who dress in Lewis’s biographies explore through sheep’s clothing/to devour the profits/ psychoanalysis. Verses about relational of recorded past” (78). vacancy address Du Bois’s failures as Staton-Taiwo expresses what Du a spouse and father: his verbal abuse, Bois means to her by drawing on Chris- unflinching expectations, marital infi- tian language and idiom. At twenty- delity, and long absences from home. five when he famously celebrated his The arrangement of her poems locates quarter-century birthday by proclaim- the dawn of the family’s difficulties to ing his life’s plans, he is a “Joshua” and

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later becomes a “prophet for the prom- mingles Black Arts and hip-hop cul- ise” whose scholarly sermons offered ture through an unfolding of Du Bois’s “a Jeremiad in Black/face” (19, 87, 86). biography. Similar to Staton-Taiwo, Configured as a biblical “David” in four Kazembe centers the prophetic power poems that move through the four sea- of Du Bois’s pen, and plumbs the in- sons, they imagine a Du Bois befitting of ternational expanse of his intellect. Du royal respect (“You stood as David/in Bois’s inspired instruction presents the this new/testament . . . redeeming time beauty and importance of Black history, stolen/from ancestral grounds”) as well “how to fall in love with/our own long as a Du Bois’s who’s many private, ex- shadow.” It also dignified working- tramarital liaisons (“Loving like an oa- class struggle (“The poetry of royalty./ sis/in a desert of deserted ladies”) con- Eloquence of peasants.”). His publica- tradicted a public, puritanical moralism tions “sought to read and write us/free. (“gaining loves/and lovers/casual in- To redeem us from crisis…to make spir- dulgences/rooftop beauties . . . a man its literate,” Kazembe writes, and “He before your time/Victorian in decadent spoke the pen/chant of jubilee people ways”) (60-2). of creation.” Moving from history to the The book also probes the reach of Du present time, Kazemble taps the living Bois’s legacy. The concluding chapter of memory of legacy (“That He, born to his twilight years recalles that at the end write and fight these veils and/lines of of his life’s work in the United States, a technicolor. To fight the fire./This time. country that “refused to hear your plea/ Because time/is long.”) (Kazembe 2018, for just a taste of heritage” he “embraced 231-32). Africa” and thus his arrival in Ghana “reversed his father’s passage” (24, 91). Conclusion Striking a note about Du Bois’s Pan-Af- rican perspective, after “Nine decades . . Commemorating the sesquicenten- . you returned to the womb/of a culture nial of Du Bois’s birth provides a timely giving birth” (91). For Staton-Taiwo, it opportunity to rethink his relationship is the witness of Du Bois’s words, the to poetry as an artist and a curator. It also longevity of his ideas that mark his leg- presents a way to explore literary art- acy (“And you recycled words/again ists’ expansive relationship to Du Bois’s and again/never wasting a thought/ life, thought, and legacy. Assembling resurrecting piece after piece”) (88). His poetry alongside of Du Bois and Du books and scholarship, like a griot who Bois alongside of poetry is not to over- preserves cultural knowledge, thus con- determine the perspective of Du Bois as stitute a living memory. a historian-poet. Rather, it is to suggest Lasana Kazembe’s poem “Because that in this historical moment we draw Time is Long,” written to celebrate the more on poetry’s power in ways that sesquicentennial of Du Bois’s birth, listen to how Du Bois’s voice—and art- draws its title from the Black intel- ists and poets responding to Du Bois’s lectual’s famous “Last Message to the voice—speaks to the times in which we World.” Its improvisational style inter- live. It is one way to dignify Hansber-

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ry’s admonition to “hold sacred strong ______and purposeful art” and therefore more powerfully honor the aesthetic signifi- References cance of Du Bois’s legacy. Acevedo, Elizabeth. December 20, 2016. Acknowledgments: “Clint Smith, Du Bois, Lineage, the Zombiepocalypse and the Role This article is a revision of my presen- of the Writer in Difficult Times.” tation at the MLK/Du Bois symposium Mosaic Magazine. https://mosa- held on the campus of Clark Atlanta icmagazine.org/clintsmith/#. University on February 22-23, 2018. I am WotYeUxFzIU. Accessed February grateful to Barbara Harris Combs and 1, 2018. the conference organizers for facilitat- Akassi, Monique Leslie (Ed.). 2018. W. E. ing my travel to the conference through B. Du Bois and the Africana Rhetoric a grant from The Fund for the Advance- of Dealienation. United Kingdom: ment of the Discipline. I especially thank Cambridge Scholars Press. panel chair Rico Chapman of Clark At- Alexander, Elizabeth. 2010. “Yolande lanta University as well as Edward Car- Speaks.” Pp. 45-6. Crave Radiance: son, Dean of Multicultural Education at New and Selected Poems, 1990-2010. The Governor’s Academy, for helpful Minneapolis: Graywolf. questions and comments about my re- Alexander, Shawn Leigh. 2015. W. E. search. I’m equally grateful to Lindsey B. Du Bois: An American Intellec- Swindall for sharing her thoughts on tual and Activist. Lanham: Row- an early version of this essay, as well as man and Littlefield. to Tom Meagher, Josh Myers, and John Amin, Larry. 2014. “The Rhetoric of Wilsey for dispensing wisdom in our Black Literary Theory and W. E. Du Bois discussions. In addition, this B. DuBois’s Influence on Harlem article updates and extensively revises Writers.” Littérature, Langues et my Black Perspectives essay “On W. E. B. Linguistique 2 (November): 61-71. Du Bois and Poetry” from the W. E. B. Andrews, William L. (Ed.). 1985. Critical Du Bois @ 150 round table the African Essays on W. E. B. Du Bois. Boston: American Intellectual History Society G. K. Hall. hosted in February 2018. I thank Keisha Aptheker, Herbert. 1985. “Introduc- Blain and J.T. Roane for permission to tion.” Pp. ix-xii. In Herbert Ap- include material featured previously on theker (Ed.). Creative Writings by the blog. Olga Dugan has so much to do W. E. B. Du Bois: A Pageant, Poems, with inspiring the ideas that led to the Short Stories, and Playlets. White creation of this article. I thank her for in- Plains: NY: Kraus-Thomson. sight, wisdom, and friendship, and our Baraka, Sho. 2013. Talented 10th. Lions always meaningful conversations. I’m and Liars Music. grateful for her illuminating comments Battle-Baptiste, Whitney and Britt on an earlier draft. Rusert. 2018. “Introduction.” 7-22.

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In Whitney Battle-Baptiste and W. E. B. Du Bois. Athens: Univer- Britt Rusert (Eds.). W. E. B. Du sity of Georgia Press. Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Chandler, Nahum Dimitri. 2013. Toward Black America. Princeton: Princ- an African Future—Of the Limit of eton Architectural Press. the World. London: Living Com- Beavers, Herman. 2000. “Romancing mons Collective. the Body Politic: Du Bois’s Propa- Clarke, John Henrik, Esther Jackson, ganda of the Dark World.” Annals Ernest Kaiser and J. H. O’Dell. of the American Academy of Political (Eds.). 1970. Black Titan W. E. B. Du and Social Science 568 (March): Bois: An Anthology by the Editors of 250-64. Freedomways. Boston: Beacon. Betts, Tara. 2014. “The Seventh Son.” Clifford, Carrie Williams. February Pp. 12. In 7 x 7 Kwansabas. Dur- 1928. “The Torch Bearer.” W. E. B. ham, NC: Backbone Press. Du Bois Papers Digital Archive. Bloom, Harold. (Ed.). 2001. W. E. B. Du Identifier mums312-b042-i396. Bois. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Clifton, Lucille. 2000. “From a Letter Publishers. Written to Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois by Bond, Nat to W. E. B. Du Bois. 1951. Alvin Borgquest of Clark Univer- “To W. E. B. Du Bois—from the sity in Massachusetts and Dated people, 1951.” W. E. B. Du Bois April 3, 1905.” Pp. 17. Quilting: Papers Digital Archive. Identifier Poems, 1987-1990. Rochester: BOA mums312-b131-i280. Editions. Borgquest, Alvin to W. E. B. Du Bois. Cotter, Joseph S. to W. E. B. Du Bois. Feb- April 3, 1905. W. E. B. Du Bois ruary 18, 1918. “To Dr. W. E. B. Du Papers Digital Archive. Identifier Bois on His 50th Birthday.” W. E. mums312-b001-i301. B. Du Bois Papers Digital Archive. Boyd, Melba Joyce. 2004. Wrestling with Identifier mums312-b011-i454. the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Davis, Alta to The Crisis. October Broadside Press. New York: Colum- 27, 1925. W. E. B. Du Bois Pa- bia University Press. pers Digital Archive. Identifier Braithwaite, William Stanley. February mums312-b169-i507. 23, 1938. “For the Seventieth Birth- Dill, Augustus Granville. February day of William Edward Burghardt 1918. “The Crisis Advertiser.” The Du Bois.” W. E. B. Du Bois Pa- Crisis, 197. pers Digital Archive. Identifier Du Bois, Shirley Graham. August 27, mums312-b084-i537. 1964. “Almighty Death.” Ghana- Bromell, Nick. (Ed.). 2018. A Political ian Times. W. E. B. Du Bois Pa- Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois. Lex- pers Digital Archive. Identifier ington: University Press of mums312-b156-i278. Kentucky, 2018. _____.(Ed.). 1964. Selected Poems by W. E. Byerman, Keith. 1994. Seizing the Word: B. Du Bois. Accra: Ghana Univer- History, Art, and Self in the Work of sities Press. John Henrik Clarke

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Africana Collection, Clark Atlanta N.A.A.C.P.’s Crisis Magazine. New University. York: The Modern Library. _____.“Tributes.” 1970. In John Henrik _____.February 1918. “Editorial.” The Clarke, Esther Jackson, Ernest Kai- Crisis, 163. ser and J. H. O’Dell (Eds.). Black _____.1982. “Foreword [Johnson’s Titan W. E. B. Du Bois: An Anthol- Bronze: A Book of Verse].” Pp. 135. ogy by the Editors of Freedomways. In Herbert Aptheker. (Ed.). Writ- Boston: Beacon. ings by W. E. B. Du Bois in Non-Pe- Du Bois, W. E. B. to Alfred Harcourt. riodical Literature Edited by Others. November 17, 1934. 1976. Pp. 18. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson. In Herbert Aptheker. (Ed.). The _____.1985. “Ghana Calls.” Pp. 52-55. In Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois, Herbert Aptheker (Ed.). Creative Volume II: Selections 1934-1944. Writings by W. E. B. Du B o i s : A Amherst: University of Massachu- Pageant, Poems, Short Stories, and setts Press. Playlets. White Plains: NY: Kraus- _____.1985. “A Litany at Atlanta.” 7-9. Thomson. In Herbert Aptheker (Ed.). Cre- _____.to Helen L. Brown. August 1, ative Writings by W. E. B. Du Bois: 1945. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers Digi- A Pageant, Poems, Short Stories, and tal Archive. Identifier Playlets. White Plains: NY: Kraus- mums312-b105-i212. Thomson. _____.to Jessie Hathcock. May 12, 1925. _____.to Alta Davis. November 4, 1925. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers Digital Ar- W. E. B. Du Bois Papers Digital Ar- chive. Identifier chive. Identifier mums312-b169- mums312-b170-i192. i508. _____.to Maude Owens. January _____.to Alvin Borgquest. April 11, 1905. 3, 1926a. W. E. B. Du Bois Pa- W. E. B. Du Bois Papers Digital Ar- pers Digital Archive. Identifier chive.Identifier mums312-b001- mums312-b035-i203. i302. _____.to Maude Owens. January _____.2007. Black Reconstruction in Amer- 26, 1926b. W. E. B. Du Bois Pa- ica: An Essay Toward a History of the pers Digital Archive. Identifier Part Which Black Folk Played in the mums312-b035-i206. Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy _____.1985. “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” in America, 1860-1880. New York: Pp. 15. In Herbert Aptheker (Ed.). Oxford University Press. Creative Writings by W. E. B. Du _____.2007. Darkwater: Voices From With- Bois: A Pageant, Poems, Short Sto- in the Veil. New York: Oxford Uni- ries, and Playlets. White Plains: NY: versity Press. Kraus-Thomson. _____.1999. “Editing The Crisis.” 1999. _____.1944. “Phylon Science or Propa- xxvii-xxxii. In Sondra Kathryn ganda.” Phylon 5/1 (1st Quarter): Wilson. (Ed.). The Crisis Reader: 5-9. Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the _____.1985. “Suez.” Pp. 45-46. In Her-

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