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This is Philosophy Bites with me, David
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Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
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Philosophy Bites is available at www.philosophybytes.com.
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frederick Douglass and W.E.B. dubois were two prominent African Americans who made a significant impact on the civil rights movement in the U.S. douglas is particularly associated with 19th century and abolitionism, and Dubois with 20th century pan Africanism. In this interview, CK Jeffers introduces some of their key ideas.
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CK Jeffers, welcome to Philosophy Bites.
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C
Thank you so much. Happy to be back.
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We're talking today about two important African American thinkers, both of whom will be known to listeners. The first is Frederick Douglass and the second is Du Bois. Let's start with Douglass. I think you've called him the foremost black intellectual of the 19th century. Tell us about his life.
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C
Yeah. Frederick Douglass was born enslaved in Maryland. He eventually escapes to the north after that, in the 1840s, becomes a public speaker, part of an abolitionist movement. He's first associated with a very important white abolitionist named William Lloyd Garrison. It is under the leadership of Garrison that he publishes his first account of his life, although he would go on to write two more. Eventually, he seeks independence from the Garrisonians. He becomes a newspaper man. And so through his speaking and his newspapers, he became one of the most important abolitionist voices in the antebellum era. When the Civil War comes, he is advising Lincoln and encouraging him to allow black soldiers to enlist. And then he remains an important leader and public intellectual all the way until his death in 1895.
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So he's born into slavery, he campaigns against slavery. Of course, slavery still exists in pockets of the world today, but there aren't many people who would defend it. So is there anything to be learnt from his criticism of it?
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C
Yeah. No, there's lots to be learned. He values his independence that he gains from the Garrisonians in part because he worries during the time that he is still with the Garrisonians, that all they want from him is his story. In fact, there's a famous line where someone said to him, you give us the facts and leave the philosophy to us. And so he wants to be truly in charge of himself as a thinker. What it means to then pay attention to what he says about slavery is, I think, to see a mind grappling with the question of domination and how domination works, how it's effective, what kinds of corrosive effects it has on the dominators themselves, what kinds of methods of opposing domination are justified. His insights into all of these things really cannot be limited to the question of slavery, human nature and the nature of human freedom. And equality. These are his concerns. And the fact that it is no longer popular to defend slavery, I think it does little to detract from how useful it is to engage with him as a thinker.
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Can you give just one example of something insightful he has to say about that relationship between the dominated and the dominator?
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Yeah. One thing that he reflects on with regard to his own development, he talks about how knowledge unfits a slave. And at a certain point, while he is still young and enslaved, he is sent from where he was living in rural Maryland to the city of Baltimore. And while he's in that city, he learns to read by asking boys with whom he plays in the streets to share some of their lessons, he manages to get out of this experience. Right. A general claim about how the more access you have to knowledge through something like literacy, the harder it becomes to subjugate you and to suppress the longing for freedom. So if we are interested in questions of epistemology. Right. Reflecting on the nature and the value of knowledge, then it's fascinating how he relates that to this question of domination through the idea that you have to deprive the enslaved of knowledge in order to effectively keep them constrained in that position.
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He gave two very famous speeches which you've written about. Tell us very briefly about them and why they matter.
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Yes. One of those speeches is the meaning of July 4th for the Negro. And it's a speech that he gave in the 1850s about Independence Day, the U.S. s Independence Day. And he very famously, in that speech, addresses the white audience and tells them that the Fourth of July is theirs, not his, that for as long as his people remain in chains that they cannot celebrate the freedom that this holiday is supposed to commemorate. And it's interesting to contrast that to another speech. The speech itself is, I would say, significantly less famous than the Fourth of July speech. But nevertheless, this other speech contains some lines like, if there's no struggle, there is no progress, and power concedes nothing without demand. These are quotations from Douglass that you'll find, and they come from this other speech, which is also about a day of celebration. It is, in fact, about Emancipation Day. And there was a practice in the northern United States, like in New York State, where he gave this speech. Also in the 1850s, there was a practice of marking Emancipation Day, a day celebrating the end of slavery in the British Empire. So what these Americans were doing by celebrating Emancipation Day, despite that being a day commemorating the end of slavery, not in their own country, they were, of course, making a kind of abolitionist Protest. And so it's fascinating to see Douglass arguing in the Emancipation Day speech that this is a holiday that can and should be embraced. And you might assume it would be quite natural to assume that what's going on there is. He's saying, well, as black people, we can't share in the one holiday, July 4th, but we can share in Emancipation Day holiday because of a sense of solidarity with our black brothers and sisters in, for example, the Caribbean. Now, as natural as that would be as an assumption, what you actually see when you, you read the Emancipation Day speech is that he does not in fact, privilege being black as the identity which allows Emancipation Day to be celebrated. He's actually very insistent on how every single living person ought to view Emancipation Day as a marker of human progress.
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That's interesting. He was an orator par excellence. There are all sorts of reports about the power of his speeches and the impact he had on listeners. Do you have a sense of how he balanced argument with rhetoric?
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C
That's a very interesting question. And it leads me to return to the fourth of July speech because there's a really interesting part of the fourth of July speech in which you might say that he rejects the value of philosophy. I think that that's a way to describe it, only to grab attention. It's actually a part of the speech that I think shows what a careful and interesting philosopher he is. It is a philosophical argument for philosophy not being what is needed at the current moment. In other words, he tries to meet an objection. And the objection is that, well, if you would argue more, disclaim less, then through the subtlety of argument, you'll be able to make your case for the abolition of slavery. And so Douglass has this systematic argument, according to which that is a ruse that there isn't in fact anything really to be argued. And that's why inflammatory rhetoric, I think he uses terms like scorching, denunciation. Right. The. That's what's called for precisely because there isn't actually any philosophical difference that is at issue. So for example, he says, do you need me to argue that the enslaved are people, there are laws that get applied to them and that they are punished for breaking, and we don't do that to non human animals. Right. Do you need me to argue that humans deserve freedom? Well, that's already argued in the Declaration of Independence. Right. And so he's going through these various points and saying, look, all of this is either implicitly or explicitly conceded. And so the hypocrisy of conceding these facts and yet still carrying on the practice of slavery shows that what needs to be done is not any logic for the rational mind, but rather the pricking of of the conscience through rhetorical force. That's what's necessary.
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That's interesting. So what's needed in this case is not philosophy, but rhetoric. Let's turn to Du Bois, who's normally known by his initials, W.E.B. du Bois, yes. Give me a very brief summary of his life.
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Yes. So William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is born after the end of slavery in 1868, and he's also born in the North, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He is a very bright young man. He first goes south to study at Fisk University, a black college in Nashville, Tennessee. But after his first degree there, he goes to Harvard, gets another undergraduate degree and then a master's. He spends some time pursuing his graduate studies in Berlin, but is unable to finish there because of funding. And so he comes back to the United States, and He gets his PhD from Harvard, making him the first black person to get a doctorate from that institution. He gets a job at Wilberforce University, a black college. And he then goes to spend some time in Philadelphia, where he does some very pioneering sociological work, resulting in a book called the Philadelphia Negro. All of that he does within the bounds of the 19th century. But he does live a very long life. He lived from 1868 all the way to 1963. It's in the first decade of the 20th century that he emerges further and further as an important leader, one of two really important leaders of the time, the other being Booker T. Washington. And the two of them famously have a debate about black rights and the proper focus of education and a number of things. He is a founding member of the naacp, the national association for the Advancement of Colored People, an important organization through which the fight for civil rights happens. And there's so much more that I could say about his life. I'll close by saying that black, by the time of the 1960s, he leaves the United States and goes to live in Ghana, which gained its independence in 1957. And he's invited there by President Kwame Nkrumah to come there and work on an idea that he's long held dear, an Encyclopedia Africana, an encyclopedia covering all of the history and sociological details of African people worldwide. And he leaves also, in significant part because by that time, he's been isolated from the movement that he helped to create, that is the civil rights movement, because he's become such a man of the left. In fact, he takes out Membership in the American Communist Party. Right before he leaves to go to Ghana and he finishes his days, he dies at the age of 95 in Ghana in 1963. In fact, on the very day before, before the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gives his famous I have a Dream speech.
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Wow. You touched on this famous disagreement he has with this other leading African American intellectual, Booker T. Washington. What was at the heart of that disagreement?
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So sociologically, what's going on is that Booker T. Washington comes to prominence partly because of the way he's able to speak to different audiences and show a sense of compromise that, for example, those who were at that time afraid of what black people in this post slavery era are trying to achieve, he was able to calm many constituencies. He has this famous image in a speech that he gives in 1895, something like, in all things social, we can be as separate as the five fingers, but we can, on an economic level, be as strong as the hand. Right. He famously argues against prioritizing the achievement of political rights, for example, voting rights. And he doesn't seek to oppose the growing trend of segregation that is part of the law in the southern United States at this time. His idea is that you don't fight the segregation and the loss of the voting rights. You concentrate on a useful, practical education, Right? One that, for example, will focus on things like agriculture or trades like carpentry. And his idea is that if black people are getting this kind of practical education, then the political rights and so on, those will come in time. So Du Bois opposes this view because he argues that you can't give up political rights. Washington, by the time that the two of them are really having this dispute, has become such a prominent leader. He's invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt, for example. And his ideas about education have become so influential in terms of where donors are giving their money, to which black colleges, for example. He's kind of concentrated power in himself in such a way that Du Bois tries to be at the forefront of breaking that hold on the fate of black America. Right. But at the level of ideas, there's first of all a difference on what it means to have a gradual approach to freedom and equality. With Du Bois arguing that you have to fight for your political rights if you're going to actually economically succeed in the way that Washington wants black people to succeed. And then there's just also this question of what education is for. Because Du Bois defends, in opposition to Washington, the importance of a liberal arts education. The idea that you're not just going to school so that you can learn something practical to do with your hands. You're trying to expose yourself to the breadth of knowledge of modern civilization, especially for the people that Du Bois called the Talented tenth. The people who, through natural ability, could be leaders amongst black people. They need access to a liberal arts education. That was a major point of conflict for the two of them.
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So it sounds like Du Bois was an elitist. Is that fair?
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He is an elitist in a very straightforward sense. I mean, he, when arguing for the importance of what he called the Talented tenth, is very explicitly saying that an elite should be entrusted with leadership roles on the basis of showing a particular aptitude. It's just always important when saying he was an elitist to recognize that this is not the kind of elitism that is about putting distance between the elite and the masses. This is in fact an elitism of service. You cultivate an elite precisely because they are going to be able to speak for the masses, but also in relation to the masses, drag them out of the degradation that slavery has pushed them into. You know, even on matters like hygiene. Right? Like the ideas that you have, exemplary individuals who through their leadership will bring the masses along with them. Being more in touch with modern civilization and the kind of progress that he believes can go along with that.
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What is the end state for Du Bois? America remains very much a segregated country, at least in residential patterns. Is that compatible with Du Bois vision of a just society?
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Great question. He in 1960, gave a speech called Whither now and why? To me, one of the most interesting pieces of writing by him, because he is at that point seeing that legal equality, he's seeing the civil rights movement is making strides towards that important outcome. And so the question he asks in that speech is, does that mean that we're going to arrive at a state where black identity is something to be let go of? There stops being the importance of any differentiating of race among Americans. And in that speech, he argues for the importance of black people continuing to value their identity as black people. African Americans, for example, valuing their connection to black people elsewhere, Africa, the Caribbean, etc. He argues that there's in fact going to be a new imperative to accomplish that sense of a distinct identity once you don't have the law keeping you separate. And he believes that maintaining that sense of a distinct identity will be helpful not just to black people themselves. You know, I've mentioned how he. In the 20th century, it became very important that he was a man of the left. He, in Fact thinks that one of the possible benefits of African Americans seeing themselves as culturally distinct, seeing themselves as connected to black people elsewhere in the world, is that they might be less invested in the ideals of American capitalism. And so if socialism is going to come to the United States, he's in fact, hopeful that black people can be the ones to bring it.
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You touched earlier when you were talking about the Independence Day speech that Douglass had been addressing, really a white listenership. And I wonder generally whether you think Douglas and Du Bois were writing for an African American readership or predominantly for a white readership.
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C
Yeah. Another great question, because I think that for both thinkers, we see them engaging in modes of address that are sometimes highlighting one audience versus another, but often when they are highlighting one audience over another, they are at the same time clearly speaking to the other audience as well. One of the interesting things about the Independence Day speech is that it does seem like it was a mainly white audience that Douglass was addressing when he gave the speech. However, this mainly white audience in Rochester, New York, I think it was the Ladies Anti Slavery Society. In other words, he was addressing an audience that was already quite sympathetic. He was, in fact, preaching to the choir. But this is where you see that he was using the occasion to produce something that he knew would then be published and circulated. So he was, in that sense, speaking in front of, you know, a white audience, but really speaking less to that particular white audience and more to a broader white audience. And what I'll say very quickly about Du Bois in this regard is that his most famous book is called the Souls of Black Folk, and it was published in 1903. And I think that anyone who reads the Souls of Black Folk will be able to identify a number of passages in which the reader that he's constructing is a white reader. Right. There's a sense that he gives in the book, for example, that he's taking a white reader behind the veil. Right. He uses the veil as this metaphor for racial division. And so this idea that he's taking the white reader behind the veil to better understand what's happening with black people. Right, right. That's part of how the book is written. And yet it was this book that truly helped to establish him as an important black leader. There are all these other important black people of the time who read the book, who take it as a kind of manifesto. Right. And so the fact that Du Bois directs the book at an idealized white reader doesn't change how much it's a book that helps establish him among black intellectuals.
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It it's hard to think of a philosopher today who has had such influence outside the academy as Douglass or Du Bois. They're activists as well as political leaders, as well as thinkers.
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Yes.
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Do you think they're good role models for contemporary thinkers, or is the idea that you could combine philosophical excellence with activism just unrealistic for most people?
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I think that there's something instructive in considering that you have Douglass, who is to a great extent self taught, becoming this important intellectual leader. Then you have Du Bois, who is not self taught, who attends these important Western institutions. You know, it's interesting that Du Bois, his second undergraduate degree at Harvard, is in philosophy, but it's in fact partly because of advice from William James that Du Bois chooses not to do his doctorate in philosophy. Du Bois was pretty sensitive to anything that he saw as a racial slight. He doesn't view James's discouraging him from pursuing the PhD in Philosophy as racist gatekeeping. He views it as practical advice that helps him to go into the social sciences and bring philosophy with him. So by the time you get to people like Angela Davis and Cornel west, the two of them Both get their PhDs in philosophy. Angela Davis does teach as a member of the philosophy department at first, but then after the time that she is on the run from the law, by the time that she is in academic positions, after that they're not in Florida philosophy departments. And then Cornel west doesn't end up at philosophy departments either. He is generally in religious studies. So it is now in the 21st century when we can, I think, expect that people who are seeking to learn about Africana philosophy and who are seeking to learn about who are the current figures right now in Africana philosophy, that they can reliably look to people with PhDs in philosophy who actually work at departments of philosophy. I think that there's all of the ways in which philosophy can be activist. What are you able to do as a teacher in the classroom? How does your work, perhaps sometimes even very technical work, nevertheless potentially inform activist movements doable? I think that there are so many ways in which we who love philosophy can bring our insights to bear on activism. And I think in doing that, we would be drawing on the examples of people like Douglas and Du Bois.
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CK Jeffers, thank you very much indeed.
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Thank you very much.
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You've been listening to Philosophy Bites. This episode was made in association with the Institute of Philosophy and supported by the Ideas Workshop, part of Open Society Foundations. For more Philosophy Bites, go to philosophybytes. Com.