The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois

In his many novels, poetry, histories, editorials, plays, and letters, W. E. B. Du Bois poured so much of his blindingly incandescent soul into his writings that no single volume could ever contain all of his words or works. In fact, had not the historian David Levering Lewis taken it upon himself to pen his Pulitzer Prize-winning double-volume biography of Du Bois, it is quite possible (sadly) that the deeper significance and greater scope of Du Bois' many exemplary contributions to humanity would have eluded modern readers.

THE WISDOM OF W. E. D. DU BOIS, part of Citadel Press' Philosophical Library Series, employs twelve original essays to showcase excerpts from what seemed to be Du Bois' ceaselessly prolific pen and life. Here, to be savored, in bite-sized nuggets of instant motivation and inspiration is Du Bois' at his most brilliant on such subjects as the dynamics of creativity, the healing joy of love, the prophetic vision of democracy, the spiritual perils of war, and much more. These pages throb with uncompromising faith in the truth and beauty of the human spirit.

"In the Du Boisian universe, art and culture assumed their value from the roles to which they were assigned and eventually played in a given society. Art, rightly applied, provided humanity with the symbols, insight, and vicarious experience necessary to help one person place him- or herself in the shoes of another, and by so doing come to appreciate the commonality of human experience. It also provided the essential tools by which humanity elevated itself from those baser instincts promoting bloodlust and xenophobia to higher inclinations for the sustenance of intellectual and spiritual interaction, cultivation and evolution of the self, and the maintenance of a moral value system that both defined and perpetuated civilized conduct on a large scale.

"Likewise, the beauty of culture came not so much from artifacts as from the 'little courtesies' of everyday behavior. It was by the grace of mutual respect and acknowledgment rather than by the rareness of a painting one possessed or the exclusiveness of one's membership in a club that indicated a refined sensibility. One's intelligence was indicated by nothing quite so much as one's ability to recognize and appreciate the activities of divine purpose from within the 'lowest' of society's laboring masses to the 'highest' of its dynastic elite.

"Bereft of consciously applied goals, art and culture tended to glorify the potentially worst in any given society or individual. Beauty degenerated to decadence, grace to greed, and freedom to the enslavement of one's senses to a material world run amok. As a forerunner of and major contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, Du Bois helped shape the sensibilities of a generation of poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, and composers to make them wary of art's alluring pitfalls.

"Even in its weakest form--that of emotional infatuation--love was something superior to both art and culture. In the face of a world where economic hardships often ground the best of the human spirit into the worst, love provided a pathway into hidden chambers of the spirit where nobility and compassion might be salvaged, resurrected, and made stronger. Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self. Its power and its value and its terror lay in its ability to dominate with joy all other aspects of reality. It was the one thing for which all else--political conviction, art, culture, self-respect, even power--might justifiably be sacrificed because it was the one thing capable of transforming chaos into hope."
--from THE WISDOM OF W.E.B. DU BOIS Citadel Press)

(Book cover of THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK)