W.E.B. DuBois's Challenge to Scientific Racism Author(s): Carol M. Taylor Source: Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Jun., 1981), pp. 449-460 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784074 Accessed: 05-12-2015 08:53 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Black Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions W.E.B. DuBOIS'S CHALLENGE TO SCIENTIFIC RACISM
CAROL M. TAYLOR Florida AtlanticUniversity
In 1929 severalhundred people gatheredin Chicago's North Hall to witnessa debateon thequestion, "Should theNegro Be Encouragedto Cultural Equality?"The affirmativeposition was arguedby W.E.B. DuBois. His opponentwas Theodore Lothrop Stoddard, Harvard Ph.D. and authorof dozens of popular articlesand twenty-twobooks. Duringthe course of thedebate, Stoddard (1929: 1) summarizedthe conclusions to which"modern science" had led him:"To-day, as neverbefore, we possessa clearappreciation of racial realities.... We know thatour Americais a WhiteAmerica.... And theoverwhelm- ingweight of both historical and scientificevidence shows that only so long as the Americanpeople remainwhite will its institutions,ideals and culturecontinue to fitthe temperament of its inhabitants-and hence continueto endure." Stoddardhad excellentreason to celebratethe clarity of his perceptionsand the self-evidenceof his conclusions.Quite literally,he had iton thebest authority. His conceptof race as a determiningfactor in humanaffairs was supportedwith virtual unanimityby the leadingfigures in Americansocial science. Utilizingboth professionaland popular channels,biologists, psychologists,and sociologistsproclaimed with one voice the inherentand immutableinferiority of the black race. JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES, Vol. 11 No. 4, June 1981 449-460 ? 1981 Sage Publications,Inc. 449
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 450 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1981
During the late nineteenthand earlytwentieth centuries, scientificracism formeda vital link in the oppressionof Americanblacks. If established social sciencedefined blacks as inferiorbeings who could naturallybe expectedto occupythe position in societywhich theyin fact held, then occasional social reformerscould be dismissedas romanticdreamers who had neitherknowledge nor appreciation of hardscientific fact. The thesis of this article is that a directand authoritative challengeto the scientificracism of thisperiod was urgently necessary,and that issuingsuch a challengewas one of the leading rhetoricalcontributions of W.E.B. DuBois. Specifi- cally, I will examine the clash betweensocial scientistsand DuBois on three issues: social Darwinism, the eugenics movement,and psychologists'measurement of intelligence. In both abilityand opportunity,DuBois was admirably equippedto confrontthe scientific community. After earning a Ph.D. fromHarvard in 1895,DuBois amassed an impressive list of scholarlyand popular publications.Between 1897 and 1910 he chaired the Departmentof Sociology at Atlanta University,where he inauguratedstudies of Americanblacks, establishinghim as "thefather of Negro sociology" (Broderick, 1969). A respectedsocial scientisthimself, DuBois was well qualifiedto join battlewith his whitecounterparts. AlthoughDuBois engagedthe enemyon a wide varietyof battlegrounds,he reached his largestaudience throughthe editorialpages of The Crisis.As editorof the NAACP's official organfrom its inceptionin 1910 untilhis resignationin 1934, DuBois saw a peak circulationof more than 100,000. Approxi- mately 80% of those readers were black (Kellogg, 1967). Armed withimpeccable credentials and access to a massive audience, DuBois attacked the scientificunderpinnings of racial discrimination.
I In the late nineteenthand earlytwentieth centuries, Amer- ican scienceenjoyed enormousprestige. The rapid advance- mentof scientificknowledge lent scientists a "halo." Sincethey had producedpalpable achievementsin theirown fields,they
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Taylor / SCIENTIFIC RACISM 451
seemedworthy of imitation, and theirdoctrines were reapplied to otherareas. Those argumentswhich could claim scientific sanctionwere not open to furtherattack. The scientificand the truewere indistinguishable (Platt, 1967). In no area were scientistsof thisperiod moreunified, and thus more influential,than in the area of race theory.Their primaryunifying agent was theDarwinian theory of evolution. Underthe leadership of Herbert Spencer, Darwin's principle of naturalselection was reappliedto society.If biologicalorga- nismsevolved gradually by eliminatingthose individuals least fittedfor survival, it was thought,then social organismsmust evolve at the same geologicrate and by the same process of elimination.The analogyhad severalcorollaries. No societyor segmentof society could be improvedsubstantially beyond the level to whichevolution had broughtit. "It is at any rate a tough old world,"admonished sociologist William Graham Sumner(1924: 245). "It has takenits trendand curvatureand all itstwists and tanglesfrom a longcourse of formation. All its wry and crooked gnarls and knobs are thereforestiff and stubborn." Reformistschemes were futile and dangerous attemptsto tamperwith the natural and inexorableprogress of evolution.A second corollarywas thatsocial conflict,such as the conflictbetween races, was naturaland desirable.Lester Frank Ward,who has been describedas the"St. Augustineof the Americancult of science"(Gabriel, 1940: 204), believed that organizedsociety had originatedin the conquest of one race by another,and that subsequentracial conflictrepre- sented the continual strivingof society to improve itself throughcompetition (Hofstadter, 1955). If evolutioneliminated the unfit,then the loser in racial conflictmust be, by definition,inferior. One argumentfre- quentlyused in supportof black inferioritywas thatthe race was dying out. Nathaniel Shaler, dean of the Lawrence ScientificSchool at Harvard,suggested in 1884 that blacks were becomingextinct. Frederick L. Hoffman'sRace Traits and Tendenciesof theAmerican Negro (1896) warnedthat the high incidenceof tuberculosisand venerealdisease among blacks arose from their inherentimmorality, and would eventuallydestroy them.
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 452 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1981
Social scientistsdiscerned further evidence of black infe- riorityin theactions of Southernlynch mobs. The prevalence of lynching,Ward (1914) explained, was a by-productof evolution.Whites lynched the black man because he insisted upon rapingwhite women. The black manraped white women in responseto the "unheard but imperiousvoice of nature commandinghim at therisk of 'lynch law' to raisehis race to a littlehigher level." Whites reacted violentlybecause of an equally instinctivedetermination to protecttheir race from inferiorstrains (1914: 359-360). AlthoughWard demurred fromthe next logical step,the obvious conclusionwas thata high incidence of lynching(not to mention raping) was inevitableand attemptsto reduceit unnatural.Perhaps more clearlythan any otherissue, the rape argumentillustrates the circularnature of evolutionarythought in the area of race theory.How do we know that the black man has rapist tendencies?Because he is inferior.How do we knowthat he is inferior?Because he has rapisttendencies. The biologicaldeterminism suggested by the social Darwinists was furthersupported by the eugenicists.In 1869the English scientistFrancis Galton published Hereditary Genius, in which he argued that individual characteristicswere determined solelyby heredity.Heredity dictated that "the average intellec- tual standardof the negrorace is some two gradesbelow our own,"for, as Galton(1962: 394) pointedout, "It is seldomthat we hearof a whitetraveller meeting a blackchief whom he feels to be the betterman." Under the stimulusof Galton's work,the eugenicsmove- mentflourished in theUnited States from the 1880s to themid- 1920s. The movement'scentral tenet was that such traitsas genius,feeblemindedness, criminal tendencies, and pauperism werepart of the human germ plasm, and thatthe unfit must be limitedin numbersthrough social application of scientific knowledge(Pickens, 1968). For the eugenicists,the issues of heredityand race were intertwined.Madison Grant, an officerin the American EugenicsSociety, announced in 1916that "races vary intellec-
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Taylor / SCIENTIFIC RACISM 453
tually and morallyjust as they do physically,"and he scolded idealists who refused to confront biological reality:
There exists to-day a widespreadand fatuous beliefin the powerof environment ... to alterheredity.... Such beliefshave done muchdamage in the past and ifallowed to go uncontra- dicted,may do even moreserious damage in thefuture. Thus the viewthat the Negroslave was an unfortunatecousin of the whiteman, deeply tanned by the tropicsun and denied the blessingsof Christianityand civilization,played no smallpart withthe sentimentalists of the Civil War periodand ithas taken us fiftyyears to learn that speaking English,wearing good clothesand goingto school and churchdoes not transforma Negro into a whiteman [1918: 226].
In place of such fuzzy thinking, Grant advocated "a rigid system of selection" through sterilization of the unfit,begin- ning withthe criminal and the insane and extendingultimately to "worthless race types" (1918: 16, 51). In the early 1900s scientific racism gained an additional impetus fromthe psychologists.In 1916 Lewis Terman and his associates "perfected"the Stanford Binet intelligencetests. The I.Q. testsdemonstrated that the children of college professors, bank presidents,and thelike displayed superior mental ability. The resultswere considered conclusive proof of the value of good heredity(Boring, 1950). They provided a powerful weapon for the racists. Abilitywas inherited;the greatest abilitywas to be foundin theupper classes; theupper classes includedfew blacks. The responseto exceptionalblacks illustratedthe closed natureof scientificthought. A highlyintelligent black was not an argumentagainst the race's incurableinferiority. Science had decreedthat blacks were not intelligent.Therefore, any intelligentperson had some amountof white blood, regardless of how black he or she appeared to be (Fanon, 1967). To be- lieve otherwise was logically impossible. As long as scientific sanctionfor racism remaineda closed system,a persuasive argumentfor significantprogress of American blacks was impossible to construct.
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 454 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1981
The mid-1920smarked the highpoint of racism'sscientific respectability.By the early 1930s,scientific pronouncements on race were under fire from membersof the scientific community.Cultural anthropologist Franz Boas denounced racistdoctrines as clearlylacking in scientificproof. Moreover, the work of the anthropologistspointed up the intimate relationshipbetween ideas and culture,and thusbegan to focus attentionon environmentrather than heredity (Gossett, 1965). In a speechbefore the Third International Eugenics Congress in 1932,Herbert J. Muller,pioneer geneticist, launched a fiery attack upon the eugenicsmovement as a mere reflectionof upper-classbias (Pickens,1968). Psychologists began to stress the importanceof learningin thedevelopment of intellectual ability(Boring, 1950). Yet race theory had become deeply embedded in the nationalconsciousness. If the scientific definition of blacks was correct,then the justice of theirposition in Americansociety was unassailable. In orderto challengethe validityof social and political discrimination,it was necessaryto argue that blacks were not what Americanscience said theywere.
II.
In his editorialsin The Crisis,DuBois developedan exten- sive rationalefor challenging whites' definitions of blacks.As DuBois saw it, no one, includingblacks themselves,was denyingthe currentassumptions:
For now nearlytwenty years we have made of ourselves mudsillsfor the feet of this Western world. We have echoed and applaudedevery shameful accusation made against 10,000,000 victimsof slavery.Did theycall us inferiorhalf-beasts? We noddedour simple heads and whispered: "We is." Did theycall ourwomen prostitutes and ourchildren bastards? We smiled and cast a stone,at the bruisedbreasts of our wivesand daughters.Did theyaccuse of laziness4,000,000 sweating, strugglinglaborers, half paid and cheated out of much of that?We shrieked:"Ain't it so?" We laughedwith them at our
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Taylor / SCIENTIFIC RACISM 455
color,we joked at our sad past,and we told chickenstories to get alms [May, 1914: 24].
"This is the lie which The Crisis is here to refute,"he announced."It is a lie, a miserableand shamefullie, which some black menhave helped... to spreadand been wellpaid for theirpains" 1912: 153). Whites'assumptions about the Negrodemanded refutation; W.E.B. DuBois would supplyit. As DuBois saw it,scientific racism was a closed systemwhich reacheduntenable conclusions by weak methodologyin the hands of biased researchers. DuBois set out to refutethe social Darwinistassumption that racial conflictwas a means of evolutionaryprogress. There were, DuBois contended,three arguments for racial antagonism,and all ofthem were false. First, social Darwinists hypothesizedthat racial antagonism represented an instinctive repulsion from somethingharmful and- was, therefore,a conditionof ultimatesurvival. Nonsense, DuBois snorted; white and black childrenplayed togetherwillingly. Race hatred was learned. Second, social Darwinistsargued that racial antagonismwas an avoidanceof poor racialtraits, such as poor healthand low ability.There was no evidence,DuBois replied,that whites were innately more healthy than blacks. As for low ability,the prejudice against Jews was hardly a functionof theirintellectual inferiority. Third, social Darwinists consideredracial antagonisma methodof race development. But, DuBois observed,it is hardlynecessary to suppressone race in orderto develop another(September, 1914: 232-233). Acceptanceof racialantagonism presumed the inferiority of one race, and Dubois attackedthe presumption.A popular scientificargument for blacks' inferioritywas the beliefthat theywere dying out. By 1918DuBois was sufficientlycertain of his factsto denythe assertion outright: "It is unfortunatethat many calamityhowlers follow the example of Dr. Shirley Wynneof the New York Departmentof Health and seek to prove, in the face of all reliablestatistics, that the Negro is 'deteriorating.'This is flatlyfalse. He is rapidlyimproving in health"(May, 1918: 11). Threeyears later DuBois notedthat,
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 456 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1981 accordingto the census of 1920,"our increasein timeof war and stresshas been healthyand encouraging"(August, 1921: 150). The disappearance of blacks mightfit the theoretic frameworkof social Darwinism,but it did not fitthe facts. Equally at variancewith the factswas the social Darwinist pronouncementthat black men were lynchedbecause they were instinctiverapists driven by an overpoweringdesire for whitewomen. Fundamentally racist, the accusation provoked DuBois's fullwrath:
For a generationwe blackfolks have been the sexual scape- goatsfor white American filth in literature and lynching. Every timea blackman commits a crime,the story is garnishedand embellishedby unbelievable sadism in order to make a beastout ofthe criminal. It is not enoughthat a blackman robs or killsor fights.No! In addition to that, the world must be made to believehim a wildbeast of suchinconceivable and abnormal appetitesthat he turns from red force and white anger to filthy lust.No proofis askedfor such incredible lies [October, 1930: 353].
Actually,DuBois pointedout, a carefulstudy by the NAACP in 1922 demonstratedthat only 19% of blacks lynchedhad been accused of rape, much less convicted(February, 1922: 166). Sexual relations,DuBois scoffed,were "about thelast of the social problems"which disturbedblacks. On the other hand,whites "for the most part profess to see butone problem: 'Do you wantyour sister to marrya nigger?"'(February, 1913: 180). It was much more likely,DuBois retorted,that his sister would be raped by a whiteman. Mulattoeshad resultedfrom thewhite man's lust,not theblack man's:"We have notasked amalgamation;we have resistedit. It has beenforced on us by brutestrength, ignorance, poverty, degradation, and fraud.It is the whiterace, roamingthe world,that has leftits trailof bastardsand outragedwomen and thenraised holy hands to heaven and deplored 'race mixture"'(December, 1921: 56). The black man did not desirewhite women; he muchpreferred
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Taylor / SCIENTIFIC RACISM 457 thatblack womenbe leftalone. Again,social Darwinistshad definedthe black man incorrectly. The eugenecistswere similarly unreliable in theirdelineation of thehereditary characteristics of the black race. DuBois was exasperated by the theoryof innate characteristics,which allowed commentatorsto ignoreobservable behavior which contradictedtheory: "There is always a whisperfor your privateear-confidential informationrelating to certainin- nate characteristics,by which this man, thoughpersonally clean,sprang from dirty seed and to dirtyseedmust inevitably return;by which this man, though a gentlemanof ability, must be treatedlike a dog on account of a temporarilyhidden (but absolutelycertain) dog nature"(May, 1911: 21). In short,the closed natureof race theorydictated that, when theory and factsconflicted, the factswere insignificant. Appalled by theeugenecists' total disregard of the influence of environment,DuBois attacked the notion that blacks betrayeda geneticpredisposition toward criminality. "Crime," DuBois lectured,"is a social disease; it is a complexresult of poverty,ignorance and other sorts of degradation.As the peculiarvictim of thesethings the Negro in the UnitedStates suffersmore from arrest and punishment . . . than any other element"(May, 1926: 9). If scientificassumptions about racewere logically untenable and contraryto fact,they were also based on weak method- ology. In 1913 DuBois commendedthe "deep insightand superbbrain power" of Dr. UlrichB. Phillipsof the University of Michigan, who knew "all about the Negro." Phillips comparedcotton production among Mississippi blacks before and afteremancipation and concludedthat it had declined.By contrast,he notedthat during the same periodcotton produc- tion among whitesin Oklahoma and Texas had increased. DuBois was scathing:
We are delightedto learnall this,for in thedark days of our collegeeconomics we weretaught that it was laborand land, together,that made a crop.... Itseems that we were grievously
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 458 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1981
in error.This is apparentlytrue only of whitelabor. Ifyou wish to judge whitelabor, judge it by the resultson richTexas and Oklahoma prairies,with fertilizers and modernmethods; if, on the otherhand, you would judge Negrolabor, slinkinto the slavery-cursedMississippi bottoms where soil has been raped for a century.... Then, rolling you eyes and liftingprotesting hands,point out that,whereas the slave driversof 1860wrung 1200pounds of cotton from the protesting earth, the lazy blacks are able . . . to get only 700 pounds for their present white masters.
DuBois concluded that he fullyexpected to see the"astute" Dr. Phillips at the head of the Department of Agriculture, not because the job required intelligence,but because it did call for "adroitness in bolsteringup bad cases" (March, 1913: 239-240). Scientific methodologies were often questionable. The scientiststhemselves, DuBois charged, would not bear scrutiny.Specifically, they were biased. In 1925 DuBois took a delighted swipe at the psychologists:
Have you noticed,brethren, that since the afflatusof postwar "science"and the greatex-cathedra utterances of those mighty scientists[psychologist William] McDougall of Harvard and what-you-may-call-him[probably psychologist Carl C. Brigham] of Princeton-thatsince all this flareupand proof of Negro "inferiority"by "intelligence"tests, there has droppeda signifi- cant silence?. . . Well,here is one ofthe reasons: In Louisville, Kentucky,they have beentesting school children ... whiteand black. And then?Well and then,silence; Silence! [Aftertwo inquiriesfrom DuBois, the superintendentreplied that the resultswould not be published.]What is wrong?Why all this heavysecrecy? . . . If thetruth must be known,those damned testswent and came out wrong! In otherwords, instead of provingwhite children superior, they actually proved-but no: We cannot writeit; it's too awful[October, 1925; 270-271].
DuBois was, of course, guessing. He had no evidence of the motive for withholdingthe results. However, the message was clear. Scientists were not objective seekers of truth,but biased whites who suppressed evidence which did not support their prejudices.
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Taylor / SCIENTIFIC RACISM 459
DuBois found similar evidence of bias in scientificpro- nouncementson blacks' insanity.In formeryears, DuBois noted,census reports had indicateda low incidenceof insanity and suicide among blacks. Scientistshad found it easy to explainthe statistics:"'Naturally,' said Americanscience, 'for Negroeshave not enoughbrains to go insanewith and are too good-naturedto kill themselves."'In more recentyears, the rates had risen sharply. "But American science" DuBois reported,"is unperturbed."The mountingsuicide rates simply indicatedthat the black man'sinferior mind was unequalto the strainof civilization."And thereyou are,"DuBois concluded. "How can we possiblysatisfy our friends?"(July, 1926: 111). DuBois's answerwas, of course,that scientistscould not be satisfied,and that the "scientificfacts," whatever they hap- pened to be, would be manipulatedby biased investigatorsto demonstratetheir preconceived and unshakableconvictions. As scientists,DuBois suggested,Americans made good racists. By 1929 DuBois was relievedto notethat the respectability of scientificracism was declining."It is becomingmore and moredifficult," he exulted,"for them [whites] to statefrankly thecase againstthe Negro. The reasonfor this is thatthe main factsupon whichthey have been relying are no longerplausible and the thesis[that blacks should not seek culturalequality] without them in barbarous, unscientificand unchristian" (May, 1929: 167). In otherwords, if the Negro was not as Americanscience defined him, then American society's treat- ment of him was unconscionable. And, DuBois argued, scientificdefinitions were illogical and unsupportedassump- tions of a closed system,derived from a laughable method- ology,and interpretedby biased investigators.Blacks were not what Americanscience said theywere. Accordingto social psychologistKenneth B. Clark (1966: 600), W.E.B. DuBois "maywell have beenthe most important figurein theAmerican civil rights movement in the twentieth century."The fact that, more than any other spokesman, DuBois issueda directand authoritativechallenge to scientific racismmay not determinewhether he meritselection as the mostimportant figure in black protest in the twentieth century.
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 460 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1981
It maysuggest, however, appropriate grounds for his nomina- tion.
REFERENCES
BORING, E. G. (1950) "The influenceof evolutionarytheory upon Americanpsy- chological thought,"in S. Persons (ed.) EvolutionaryThought in America. New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress. BRODERICK, F. L. (1969) W.E.B. DuBois: NegroLeader in a Time of Crisis.Stan- ford,CA: StanfordUniversity Press. CLARK, K. B. (1966) "The civilrights movement: momentum and organization,"in T. Parsons and K. B. Clark (eds.) The Negro American.Boston: Beacon. DuBOIS, W.EB. (1910-1934)Editorials in The Crisis. FANON, F. (1967) Black Skin, WhiteMasks (C. L. Markmann,trans.). New York: Grove Press. GABRIEL, R. H. (1940)'ThreCourse of AmericanDemocratic Thought. New York: Ronald Press. GALTON, F. (1962) HereditaryGenius. Cleveland: Meridian. (Originally published 1869.) GOSSETT, T. F. (1965) Race: The Historyof an Idea in America.New York:Schocken. GRANT, M. (1918) The Passing of the Great Race. New York: Scribner. HOFFMAN, F. (1896) Race Traits and Tendenciesof the AmericanNegro. New York: Macmillan. HOFSTADTER, R. (1955) Social Darwinismin AmericanThought. Boston: Beacon. KELLOGG, C. F. (1967) NAACP. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress. PICKENS, D. (1968) Eugenicsand the Progressives.Nashville, TN: VanderbiltUni- versityPress. PLATT, 0. (1967) "Inventionand advancement,"in H. N. Smith(ed.) Popular Cul- tureand Industrialism,1865-1890. Garden City,NY: Anchor. SHALER, N. (1884) "The Negro problem."Atlantic Monthly 54 (November):696- 709. STODDARD, T. L. (1929) "Should the Negro be encouragedto culturalequality?" Typed manuscript,DuBois papers,Fisk University,Nashville, Tennessee. SUMNER, W. G. (1924) "The absurdeffort to makethe world over," in A. Kellerand M. Davi (eds.) SelectedEssays of WilliamGraham Sumner. New Haven,CT: Yale UniversityPress. WARD, L. F. (1914) Pure Sociology. New York: Macmillan.
Carol M. Tayloris AssociateProfessor of Communicationat Florida Atlantic University.Her major interestis in Americanmass movements.
This content downloaded from 159.178.22.27 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 08:53:37 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions