3 - Three theories of the race of W. E. B. Du Bois

Summary

It is generally recognized today that no scientific definition of race is possible … Race would seem to be a dynamic and not a static conception, and the typical races are continually changing and developing, amalgamating and differentiating.

W. E. B. Du Bois

The only possible objective definition of consciousness is a sociological one.

V. N. Volosinov

Autobiographies do not form indisputable authorities. They are always incomplete, and often unreliable. Eager as I am to put down the truth, there are difficulties; memory fails especially in small details, so that it becomes finally but a theory of my life, with much forgotten and misconceived, with valuable testimony but often less than absolutely true, despite my intention to be fair and frank.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Introduction

At the opening of his 1940 book Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept, W. E. B. Du Bois places an “Apology” which is first of all an apology for his vacillation on the question of the generic status of the text: autobiography or sociology? He tells us that this book was initially intended as a third “set of thought centering around the hurts and hesitancies that hem the black man in America,” following 1903's extremely popular The Souls of Black Folk and 1920's less successful sequel, Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil. But, he says, the celebration of his seventieth birthday provided him with the opportunity to compose an autobiographical speech, which he then decided could be used as a framing narrative for a book of general essays.