Why Did WW2 Advance Civil Rights When WW1 Reversed Them? Here's What WEB DuBois Said

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many of us think that we know all there is to know about W.E.B Du Bois was the early 20th century’s most significant thinker, writer, and philosopher of the U.S. civil rights movement. He saw an extraordinary opportunity during World War 1 to advance the rights of black Americans. He encouraged them to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War 1, enlisting to fight in the war. This decision would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for over two decades, Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of black participation in World War 1. His book, however, remained unpublished. Today’s guest is Chad Williams, author of “The Wounded World,” an account of Du Bois’s efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works of history. He reveals Du Bois’s struggles to reckon with both the history and troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for black people in the 20th century. He also addresses larger questions of why lynchings against black Americans spiked following the war.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This guy here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.3	During World War I, WEB Du Bois, one of the most important civil rights leaders of the
0:12.6	20th century, saw the war as an incredible opportunity for African Americans.
0:17.1	He publicly called on them to enlist in the military and joined the allied war effort,
0:20.9	even though the military was segregated at this point, and segregation had only become
0:25.1	much worse in the United States during the Wilson administration.
0:28.4	He was thinking that their involvement in combat would increase support for Black Americans
0:32.8	to have full access to the rights of American citizenship.
0:36.1	This was also a political move because he worried that the War Department could use this
0:40.0	edition act to shut down the NAACP's journal in which he wrote articles supporting the
0:44.5	war if it was insufficiently patriotic.
0:46.3	We got a furious blowback from Black moderates and radicals for the States.
0:50.5	He then set out to write the definitive history of Black military involvement in World War
0:54.8	1 with hundreds of accounts from soldiers, but also describing the violent backlash they
0:59.7	received in America following the war, and pondered deeply on the issues of civil rights
1:03.9	in early 20th century America.
1:05.7	Sadly, the book was never finished.
1:07.6	In today's guest Chad Williams, author of the book The Wounded World, looked through
1:11.2	Devoices Archives, the story of writing this book, and reconstructed as best as he could
1:16.4	the narrative impulse of the work.
1:18.5	This episode is an examination of Black Americans in the First World War, Du Bois's involvement,
1:24.2	and in a bigger sense, an exploration of whether or not Du Bois was able to accomplish
	...

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