Du Bois Joins The Communist Party (1961)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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It’s December 5th. In 196, W.E.B. Du Bois announces that he’s joining the Communist Party — at the age of 93.

Jody, Niki and Kellie discuss why Du Bois found an ideological home in the Party, his lifelong ideological seeking, and what it meant to join the Communist Party in this particular moment.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:09.0	This day, winter of 1961, Dr. W.E. B. Du Bois, one of the country's leading African-American historians and sociologists and activists.
0:21.0	Well, Du Bois formally joins the Communist Party at this time in
0:25.6	1961. He of course was the founder way back in 1999 of the N-W-A-C-P but had plenty of
0:32.1	disagreements with that organization about the best way to
0:34.5	advocate and agitate for black liberation. Over the decades, Du Bois had lots of
0:39.9	political evolutions and moments, but then here we are in 1961 at the age of 93 years old and he makes
0:47.4	this announcement that he is joining the Communist Party.
0:51.4	Really interesting chapter in the life of one of the country's most
0:53.8	consequential figures, and it says a lot about the boys and about the early 60s civil rights
0:59.6	movement and of course what the Communist Party meant in that moment.
1:03.4	So here to discuss as always,
1:05.2	Nicoleheimer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.
1:08.6	Hello there.
1:09.3	Hi Jody.
1:10.1	Hey there.
1:11.2	We've touched on Du Bois, but I think it's probably worth doing a little
1:13.4	Du Bois 101, especially around the central theme of like political and ideological evolution that goes
1:20.5	all the way back to the founding of the N doubleDouble ACP and the split or however you want to characterize it Kelly with the N-Double ACP.
1:26.4	So do you want to paint a little picture of him as a, I don't know, as an ideological seeker, which maybe lets us understand this moment too.
1:34.0	The boy is one of the most fascinating persons I think in African American history and
	...

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