Black and Red

W. E. B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963

By Gerald Horne

Series: SUNY series in African American Studies
Paperback : 9780887060885, 472 pages, November 1985
Hardcover : 9780887060878, 472 pages, November 1985
Out of print (Paperback)
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Preface
Introduction
1. Du Bois Up Close
2. A Military, Anti-Imperialist Afro-American Community
3. Color and Democracy
4. The World and Du Bois
5. When Push Comes to Shun
6. Every Strike Is a Dress Rehearsal for Revolution
7. White on Black on Red
8. Human Rights - and Wrongs
9. Gideon's Black Army
10. Farewell to All That
11. Africa and Peace; Part I
12. Ban the Bomb
13. The American Labor Party and the Progressive Party
14. The Battle for Peace
15. Africa and Peace; Part II
16. Du Bois and Cold War Repression
17. Du Bois and the Civil Rights Movement
18. Du Bois as an Intellectual Force
19. Du Bois and Foreign Affairs
20. Du Bois and the Communists
21. Du Bois and the Socialist Countries
22. Du Bois and Africa
Conclusion: The Death of Du Bois
Notes
Bibliographic Note
Index

Description

Many historians have seen a radical shift in W. E.B. Du Bois' political activities in his later years. Following World War II, the evolution of his political perspective led to his ouster from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, where he had worked for years, and the Justice Department's indictment of him for failure to register as a foreign agent. In this extensively researched study, Gerald Horne shows that Du Bois' later activities were the culmination of his lifelong concerns, which Du Bois resolutely followed despite the threats of Cold War McCarthyism. In investigating Du Bois' last 20 years, Horne shows how the confluence of Cold War anticommunism and attempts to discredit the civil rights and anticolonial movements influenced the evaluation of Du Bois' activity. The recently opened papers of W. E.B. Du Bois and previously unexamined papers of the NAACP are among the new sources Horne examined for his study.

Gerald Horne is National Director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, a Revson Fellow at Columbia University, and on leave from the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College. A graduate of Princeton, he also holds a JD degree from Berkeley and a Ph. D. from Columbia. A long-time resident of Harlem, Dr. Horne is also a national leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

Reviews

"A masterful piece of historical research, this book is a long overdue revisionist interpretation of the final two decades of Du Bois' life. The basic view that Du Bois departed from civil rights activism after World War II and became a pawn in the Cold War is thoroughly corrected here. The entire book illustrates the evolution of Du Bois, moving from materials drawn from the pre-1945 period through the end of his life. It is vitally important as a reference in the field. " — Manning Marable, Professor of Political Sociology and Director, Africana and Hispanic Studies Program, Colgate University