Du Bois is right to argue that the oppressed, of necessity, will rise up in resistance and wage fierce and heroic struggles for liberation and higher levels of human life. If on one hand Du Bois's proposition calls our attention to the gross inequities of power, wealth, opportunity and access between whites and the majority of the peoples of the world, it also raises the problematic of the response of the oppressed of the world and the impact this will have on human society and history. He states that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, the question of how far differences of race-which show themselves chiefly in the color of skin and the texture of the hair-will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization" (1900a: 125). In his "Address to the Nations of the World" on behalf of the first Pan-African Congress, Du Bois repeats his proposition and further defines the nature of the problem. Du Bois engages the questions of race, racial domination and racial exploitation with the well-known proposition that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line." Although this proposition gains prominence in the forethought of the Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois had already introduced the concept in a lecture at the third annual meeting of the American Negro Academy in 1900 titled "The Present Outlook for the Dark Races of Mankind." His purpose, he states (1900b: 47), was to consider "the problem of the color line, not simply as a national and personal question but rather in its larger world aspect in time and space." He seeks to critically examine the question of "what part is the color line destined to play in the 20th century?" It is a critical task which we must engage, he tells his audience, for "the secret of social progress is wide and thorough understanding of the social forces which move and modify your age." And there is for him no doubt that race as a bio-social category and construction and the racist thought and practice which it produces are among those social forces which will "move and modify (our) age" (Lewis, 1993 Zamir, 1995).Īfter identifying and discussing major problems of the world, Du Bois concludes (1900b: 54) that his critical survey of these problems "confirms the proposition with which I started-the world problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line-the question of the relation of the advanced races of men who happened to be white to the great majority of the undeveloped or half-developed nations of mankind who happen to be yellow, brown or black." Du Bois argued that this relationship is essentially one of domination, exploitation and "narrow opportunity" for development for the people of color. But of necessity, for Du Bois, it requires a multidimensional analysis which identifies and seeks to understand the intersection of race and class as both modes of domination and modes of resistance on the national and international level. The concept of the color-line refers essentially to the role of race and racism in history and society. Du Bois's work and thought to extract useful insights and develop intellectual and social initiatives based on these, we unavoidably must deal with his concept of the color line and the role he assigned it in African and human history (Butler, 2000 Fontenot, 2001 Juguo, 2001 Rabaka, 2001).
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