essay on the color line

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An Analysis of “The Color Line,” Frederick Douglass (1881)

Douglass Statue in New York, courtesy of Law & Liberty

“Few evils are less accessible to the force of reason, or more tenacious of life and power, than a long-standing prejudice.” [1] This powerful quote opened “The Color Line,” an article written by Frederick Douglass in 1881. As a formerly enslaved person later known for his literature and orations focusing on equal rights for Black Americans, Douglass offered numerous insights regarding race relations in America. Throughout the Reconstruction Era, as some in the politically reunified country attempted to reconcile the horrific cost of slavery on human lives, Douglass asserted himself as a scholar on the topics of enslavement and the prejudice that came from it. His position in American politics and his autobiographical experiences further contextualized his authorship of “The Color Line” in 1881, including his life as an enslaved man, his complicated relationship with Abraham Lincoln, and his various political roles in the 1870s. Douglass’ article offered an opening in which the impact of slavery was philosophically analyzed through the lens of its past and its anticipated future in the (Re)united States of America. “The Color Line” could be used today to view Douglass’ life through sociological and philosophical lenses in a work that is shorter than his autobiographies, but just as impactful.

First Page of “The Color Line,” courtesy of Internet Archive

“The Color Line” was published in 1881 in The North American Review , the oldest literary magazine in the United States. [2] The article was eleven pages in length and was presented as an informative text about how the color line came to be and why it was persistent in American society. As presented by Douglass throughout his article, the color line described the social division between Black people and White people in America. This division was created by slavery and continued through the introduction of divisive legislation by Southern state governments, such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses in the years following the implementation of the 15 th Amendment. [3] In Northern states, the color line was more evident socially in the “widely divergent spheres” of the two races. [4] As a phenomenon that was both old (in the relationship between slaveholders and those enslaved) and new (as a sociolegal development after the Reconstruction Amendments), the color line was an important issue for Douglass to discuss in his article.

In the opening paragraph of “The Color Line,” Douglass discussed the nature of prejudice in society and its lasting impact on those it oppressed. He claimed that “few evils” were as rigid as “long-standing prejudice,” which he argued was a “moral disorder,” that became stronger as it denied arguments against it, especially as it created new, ugly images of Black people in society. Douglass further claimed that it was easy for people “to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate,” as prejudice added a new tint to the lenses of oppressors’ vision. [5] In the remainder of the article, Douglass discussed the origins of prejudice in slavery, its effects on the Black race, and its persistence in society. After the first paragraph, he discussed the existence of prejudice in historical England. He claimed that prejudice has existed elsewhere in other forms, but “of all the races and varieties of men which have suffered from this feeling, the colored people of this country have endured the most.” Douglass further argued that prejudice was “unreasoning,” and it made the Black man “the slave of society” even after slavery was abolished in America in 1865. [6]

Portrait of Douglass as a Young Man, courtesy of National Park Service

Even though some claimed that prejudice was “natural, instinctive, and invincible” in society, Douglass argued that if this were true, then it would have been true universally. [7] He claimed that there was “no color prejudice in Europe,” which discredited his first and second caveats of prejudice, and he further argued that most prejudices in America came from the guilt of White people, as they found it easier to oppress those they had harmed, rather than to make reparations for their actions. [8] Additionally, since White people in the South were economically interested in keeping Black people enslaved, they continued to oppress and belittle them. “Out of slavery has come this prejudice and this color line,” Douglass asserted in his article. [9] After he established the origins of the American color line, Douglass claimed that the prejudice in society could not be attributed to merely the color of one’s skin—there must have been an association of skin color with undesirable conditions, such as “slavery, ignorance, stupidity, servility, poverty, [and] dependence.” [10] Douglass claimed that this color line must have been man-made, for it was too inconsistent to be natural. One example of this inconsistency was the way White men feared the rise of the Black race, yet they claimed Black people were “originally and permanently inferior.” [11]

In his closing paragraph, Douglass asserted his belief in great men to overcome the effects of prejudice. “Men who are really great,” he wrote, “are too great to be small,” and he included Abraham Lincoln amongst others in his subsequent list of great men he knew. [12] In an optimistic outlook, Douglass stated that “the number of those who rise superior to prejudice is great and increasing,” but he still envisioned a nation in which all people “respect[ed] the rights and dignity” of each other. As seen in his first paragraph, he ultimately knew that prejudice would be difficult to rid the country of. [13] The descriptions of discrimination in “The Color Line” were likely an attempted appeal to members of the public who supported the abolition of slavery during the Civil War, as it would have been in their ability to perhaps open the eyes of those who denounced equal rights. Additionally, when he wrote this article, Douglass was focused on an updated version of his autobiography, which may have contributed to his philosophical views regarding experiences with prejudice.

Douglass’ First Place of Residence in New Bedford, courtesy of National Park Service

Douglass was born in the Eastern Shore region of Maryland in 1818 as an enslaved man, and at the age of eight, he was hired out by his master and relocated to Baltimore, where he taught himself how to read and write. At the age of fifteen, he was sent back to the Eastern Shore, where he taught other enslaved people and eventually attempted to escape. He was then returned to Baltimore where he met Anna Murray, a free Black woman. Murray helped Douglass escape by providing him with money for a train ticket, which he boarded under disguise and rode to New York City, where he declared himself free. In New York, he married Anna, and they moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts after they decided it would not be safe for Douglass to live in the city as a fugitive. In Massachusetts, Douglass attended abolitionist meetings and spoke about his experiences as a slave, and he soon began to work as an agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. To prevent himself from being captured and enslaved again, Douglass traveled overseas to Europe where he gave speeches about emancipation and sold copies of his first autobiography. After abolitionists in Europe offered to purchase his freedom, Douglass returned to America as a free man. He and Anna relocated to Rochester, New York, where he started a newspaper, The North Star . [14]

Lincoln and Douglass Meet During the Civil War, courtesy of Library of Congress

When the Civil War began in 1861, Douglass worked to ensure that emancipation would be a result. He continued to speak about his experiences, and he even denounced President Abraham Lincoln’s inaction on slavery at the beginning of the war. [15] After the Emancipation Proclamation was presented on January 1, 1863, Douglass worked to recruit Black soldiers to join the war effort. He believed that serving in the army would guarantee them citizenship after the war ended. [16] During the war, Douglass also met with Lincoln to advocate on the behalf of Black soldiers who were not receiving equal treatment to White soldiers. [17] The relationship between Douglass and Lincoln was historically complicated, as the orator was oftentimes frustrated with the president, but eventually praised his character and decision-making. This was particularly evident in “The Color Line,” when Douglass mentioned him as a man “too great to be small.” [18] Douglass’ work during the Civil War exhibited his desire for Black representation and equality in the nation, and it additionally helped him gain standing in the Republican Party, which he became closely aligned with in the following years. [19]

In 1872, the Douglass family moved to Washington D.C. where Frederick held several office positions before the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, “including assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, legislative council member of the D.C. Territorial Government, board member of Howard University, and president of the Freedman’s Bank.” Later, between 1877 and 1891, Douglass served under five presidents at three different positions. [20] After serving as the U.S. Marshall for Washington D.C. under President Hayes from 1877 until the change of administration in 1881, Douglass was appointed as the Recorder of Deeds for Washington D.C. under President James A. Garfield. [21] This less-involved position frustrated Douglass, which could have contributed to his thoughts on the prejudice he saw and felt as a Black politician in America. Throughout his political career, Douglass aligned himself with the Republican Party, although he presented his ideas during and after the Civil War as typically radical. [22] It was during these years in his political career that Douglass published “The Color Line.” Additionally, over the course of his life, Douglass produced three autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845, My Bondage My Freedom in 1855, and Life and Times in 1881. [23]

Terrorizing a Black Voter at the Ballot Box, courtesy of Tennessee State Library and Archives

When “The Color Line” was published in 1881, Black people were beginning to experience the oppression and racism of the Jim Crow Era in the American South. [24] The Reconstruction Amendments —including the 13 th in 1865, the 14 th in 1868, and the 15 th in 1870—had appeared to offer legislative protection to those of African descent, but they were quickly circumvented by legislators repulsed by racial equality. [25] Through the implementation of poll taxes, residency requirements, grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and other discriminatory regulations, Black people were largely prevented from exercising their constitutional right to vote in the South from the 1870s until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . [26] During a campaign address for President Garfield in 1880, Douglass spoke about the nullification of the Reconstruction Amendments by the South, and this racist legislation was likely at the forefront of his mind when writing his article in 1881. [27] In “The Color Line,” Douglass presented readers with an explanation for the persistence of prejudice in society as seen in the regulations preventing the Black vote. He alerted his audience that because of the characteristics of prejudice, it could survive and thrive in post-Civil War American society for years to come.

In the election of 1880, Douglass campaigned for Republican candidate James Garfield, but his role was less important than it had been during the two previous administrations. As “a new generation of black leaders” came into the political realm, Douglass was slowly pushed out. [28] This new generation was mentioned in the last paragraph of Douglass’ article when he referred to numbers growing of people “who rise superior to prejudice.” [29] When Garfield was elected in 1880, Douglass hoped for another presidential appointment to a position of importance, even though internally he was only waveringly faithful to the new Administration. Instead, he received what he saw as a demotion to the Recorder of Deeds for Washington D.C., which likely left a bitter impression with prejudice on his mind. Around the publishing of “The Color Line” in 1881, Douglass also completed an updated version of his autobiography titled Life and Times, in which he reflected heavily on his experiences with great men and sought to define “the theory of the American self-made man.” [30] As Douglass reflected on his life while writing this third autobiography and “The Color Line,” he must have also considered his various encounters with prejudice.

Douglass as a Politician, courtesy of Library of Congress

Even though the Reconstruction Era ended in 1877, Douglass believed that White Americans still had to evolve in their thoughts and actions towards other races. By claiming there are “few evils” that act in the same ways as prejudice, he asserted that racial discrimination was one of the worst societal diseases man could experience. [31] This was perhaps the mindset of someone tired of people with the same skin color as him being treated with such hatred. This prejudice “refus[ed] all contradiction,” namely from Southern legislators and White supremacists, which allowed it to “[distort] the features of the fancied original” and render the voice of the Black man silent. [32] Furthermore, because it “create[d] the conditions necessary to its own existence,” Douglass believed that prejudice would continue to affect Black lives in the future. By hating Black people for more than merely the color of their skin and associating the entire race with undesirable qualities—as discussed by Douglass in the rest of his article—the White race was (and will continue to be) consistently oppressive to People of Color. [33]

In the opening paragraph of “The Color Line,” Douglass described the prejudice that had taken hold of American society during and after the abolition of slavery. He claimed this prejudice would continue to affect the lives of Black people in the future, such as the implementation of discriminatory legislation following the Reconstruction Amendments that affected Black people at the ballot boxes. Douglass’ multiple careers during the initial years of these Jim Crow laws further allowed him to effectively analyze the philosophy of this prejudice through his growing disappointment with American politics.

Douglass Statue at Talbot County Courthouse in Maryland, courtesy of Maryland Office of Tourism

Today, “The Color Line” may seem to be one of Douglass’ more insignificant works, especially in the wake of his speech in 1876 at the Emancipation Memorial in Washington D.C., proceeding his reflections on the Lost Cause in 1883 , or when he published three separate autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845, My Bondage My Freedom in 1855, and Life and Times in 1881. [34] Despite these other, more famous works by Douglass, “The Color Line” can serve several purposes when analyzed fully. Although it is not directly an autobiographical work, it reflects many of Douglass’ experiences as an enslaved man, a writer, an orator, an abolitionist, a war-time recruiter, and a politician. This article could therefore be used to peer into Douglass’ life through sociological and philosophical lenses, especially since it is much shorter and easier to sift through than a full autobiography. By incorporating explanations for the history of prejudice into “The Color Line,” Douglass provided a glimpse into the possible future of race relations in American society.

[1] Frederick Douglass, “The Color Line,” The North American Review , University of Northern Iowa, vol. 132, no. 295 (June 1881), 567, [ WEB ].

[2] Author Unknown, North American Review, University of Northern Iowa, 2021, Accessed Dec. 6, 2021, [ WEB ].

[3] Farrell Evans, “How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed the African American Vote for Generations,” History , May 13, 2021, Accessed Dec. 9, 2021, [ WEB ].

[4] John Mecklin, “The Philosophy of the Color Line, American Journal of Sociology , vol. 19, no. 3 (Nov. 1913), 354, [ WEB ].

[5] Douglass, “The Color Line,” 567. [6] 568. [7] 569. [8] 571. [9] 573. [10] 575. [11] 576. [12] 577. [13] 577.

[14] Author Unknown, “Frederick Douglass,” National Park Service , July 24, 2021, Accessed Dec. 6, 2021, [ WEB ].

[15] Louis P. Masur, The Civil War , (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), 41.

[16] Masur, 56-57.

[17] Author Unknown, “Frederick Douglass.”

[18] David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom , (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 337: Author Unknown, “Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln: Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)” from The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now , Library of America, Feb. 9, 2013, Accessed Dec. 10, 2021, [ WEB ]: Douglass, “The Color Line,” 577.

[19] Roy E. Finkenbine, “Douglass, Frederick,” American National Biography , February 2000, Accessed Dec. 8, 2021, [ WEB ].

[20] Author Unknown, “Frederick Douglass,” National Park Service , July 24, 2021, Accessed Dec. 6, 2021, [ WEB ].

[21] Noelle Trent, “Frederick Douglass,” Britannica , Oct. 5, 2021, Accessed Dec. 11, 2021, [ WEB ].

[22] Louis P. Masur, The Civil War , (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), 41.

[23] William L. Andrews, “African American Literature,” Britannica , Jul. 28, 2020, Accessed Dec. 12, 2021, [ WEB ].

[24] Evans, “How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed.”

[25] Author Unknown, “The Reconstruction Amendments,” National Constitution Center , Accessed Dec. 13, 2021, [ WEB ].

[26] Evans, “How Jim Crow-Era Laws Suppressed.”

[27] Blight, Frederick Douglass, 616.

[28] Blight, Frederick Douglass, 612.

[29] Douglass, “The Color Line,” 577.

[30] Blight, Frederick Douglass, 615, 619.

[31] Douglass, “The Color Line,” 567. [32] 567. [33] 571.

[34] Anna Maria Gillis, “Frederick Douglass Lived Another Fifty Years After Publishing His First Autobiography,” Humanities , vol. 38, no. 1 (2017), from National Endowment for the Humanities , Accessed Dec. 12, 2021, [ WEB ]: Andrews, “African American Literature.”

Matthew Pinsker

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The Color Line

By frederick douglass.

Few evils are less accessible to the force of reason, or more tenacious of life and power, than a long-standing prejudice. It is a moral disorder, which creates the conditions necessary to its own existence, and fortifies itself by refusing all contradiction. It paints a hateful picture according to its own diseased imagination, and distorts the features of the fancied original to suit the portrait. As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate.

Prejudice of race has at some time in their history afflicted all nations. "I am more holy than thou" is the boast of races, as well as that of the Pharisee. Long after the Norman invasion and the decline of Norman power, long after the sturdy Saxon had shaken off the dust of his humiliation and was grandly asserting his great qualities in all directions, the descendants of the invaders continued to regard their Saxon brothers as made of coarser clay than themselves, and were not well pleased when one of the former subject race came between the sun and their nobility. Having seen the Saxon a menial, a hostler, and a common drudge, oppressed and dejected for centuries, it was easy to invest him with all sorts of odious peculiarities, and to deny him all manly predicates. Though eight hundred years have passed away since Norman power entered England, and the Saxon has for centuries been giving his learning, his literature, his language, and his laws to the world more successfully than any other people on the globe, men in that country still boast their Norman origin and Norman perfections. This superstition of former greatness serves to fill out the shriveled sides of a meaningless race-pride which holds over after its power has vanished. With a very different lesson from the one this paper is designed to impress, the great Daniel Webster once told the people of Massachusetts (whose prejudices in the particular instance referred to were right) that they "had conquered the sea, and had conquered the land," but that "it remained for them to conquer their prejudices." At one time we are told that the people in some of the towns of Yorkshire cherished a prejudice so strong and violent against strangers and foreigners that one who ventured to pass through their streets would be pelted with stones.

Of all the races and varieties of men which have suffered from this feeling, the colored people of this country have endured most. They can resort to no disguises which will enable them to escape its deadly aim. They carry in front the evidence which marks them for persecution. They stand at the extreme point of difference from the Caucasian race, and their African origin can be instantly recognized, though they may be several removes from the typical African race. They may remonstrate like Shylock -- "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter, as a Christian is?" -- but such eloquence is unavailing. They are negroes -- and that is enough, in the eye of this unreasoning prejudice, to justify indignity and violence. In nearly every department of American life they are confronted by this insidious influence. It fills the air. It meets them at the workshop and factory, when they apply for work. It meets them at the church, at the hotel, at the ballot-box, and worst of all, it meets them in the jury-box. Without crime or offense against law or gospel, the colored man is the Jean Valjean of American society. He has escaped from the galleys, and hence all presumptions are against him. The workshop denies him work, and the inn denies him shelter; the ballot-box a fair vote, and the jury-box a fair trial. He has ceased to be the slave of society. He may not now be bought and sold like a beast in the market, but he is the trammeled victim of a prejudice, well calculated to repress his manly ambition, paralyze his energies, and make him a dejected and spiritless man, if not a sullen enemy to society, fit to prey upon life and property and to make trouble generally.

When this evil spirit is judge, jury, and prosecutor, nothing less than overwhelming evidence is sufficient to overcome the force of unfavorable presumptions.

Everything against the person with the hated color is promptly taken for granted; while everything in his favor is received with suspicion and doubt.

A boy of this color is found in his bed tied, mutilated, and bleeding, when forthwith all ordinary experience is set aside, and he is presumed to have been guilty of the outrage upon himself; weeks and months he is kept on trial for the offense, and every effort is made to entangle the poor fellow in the confused meshes of expert testimony (the least trustworthy of all evidence). This same spirit, which promptly assumes everything against us, just as readily denies or explains away everything in our favor. We are not, as a race, even permitted to appropriate the virtues and achievements of our individual representatives. Manliness, capacity, learning, laudable ambition, heroic service, by any of our number, are easily placed to the credit of the superior race. One drop of Teutonic blood is enough to account for all good and great qualities occasionally coupled with a colored skin; and on the other hand, one drop of negro blood, though in the veins of a man of Teutonic whiteness, is enough of which to predicate all offensive and ignoble qualities. In presence of this spirit, if a crime is committed, and the criminal is not positively known, a suspicious-looking colored man is sure to have been seen in the neighborhood. If an unarmed colored man is shot down and dies in his tracks, a jury, under the influence of this spirit, does not hesitate to find the murdered man the real criminal, and the murderer innocent.

Now let us examine this subject a little more closely. It is claimed that this wonder-working prejudice -- this moral magic that can change virtue into vice, and innocence to crime; which makes the dead man the murderer, and holds the living homicide harmless -- is a natural, instinctive, and invincible attribute of the white race, and one that cannot be eradicated; that even evolution itself cannot carry us beyond or above it. Alas for this poor suffering world (for four-fifths of mankind are colored), if this claim be true! In that case men are forever doomed to injustice, oppression, hate, and strife; and the religious sentiment of the world, with its grand idea of human brotherhood, its "peace on earth and good-will to men," and its golden rule, must be voted a dream, a delusion, and a snare.

But is this color prejudice the natural and inevitable thing it claims to be? If it is so, then it is utterly idle to write against it, preach, pray, or legislate against it, or pass constitutional amendments against it. Nature will have her course, and one might as well preach and pray to a horse against running, to a fish against swimming, or to a bird against flying. Fortunately, however, there is good ground for calling in question this high pretension of a vulgar and wicked prepossession.

If I could talk with all my white fellow-countrymen on this subject, I would say to them, in the language of Scripture: "Come and let us reason together." Now, without being too elementary and formal, it may be stated here that there are at least seven points which candid men will be likely to admit, but which, if admitted, will prove fatal to the popular thought and practice of the times.

First. If what we call prejudice against color be natural, i.e., a part of human nature itself, it follows that it must be co-extensive with human nature, and will and must manifest itself whenever and wherever the two races are brought into contact. It would not vary with either latitude, longitude, or altitude; but like fire and gunpowder, whenever brought together, there would be an explosion of contempt, aversion, and hatred.

Secondly. If it can be shown that there is anywhere on the globe any considerable country where the contact of the African and Caucasian is not distinguished by this explosion of race-wrath, there is reason to doubt that the prejudice is an ineradicable part of human nature.

Thirdly. If this so-called natural, instinctive prejudice can be satisfactorily accounted for by facts and considerations wholly apart from the color features of the respective races, thus placing it among the things subject to human volition and control, we may venture to deny the claim set up for it in the name of human nature.

Fourthly. If any considerable number of white people have overcome this prejudice in themselves, have cast it out as an unworthy sentiment, and have survived the operation, the fact shows that this prejudice is not at any rate a vital part of human nature, and may be eliminated from the race without harm.

Fifthly. If this prejudice shall, after all, prove to be, in its essence and in its natural manifestation, simply a prejudice against condition, and not against race or color, and that it disappears when this or that condition is absent, then the argument drawn from the nature of the Caucasian race falls to the ground.

Sixthly. If prejudice of race and color is only natural in the sense that ignorance, superstition, bigotry, and vice are natural, then it has no better defense than they, and should be despised and put away from human relations as an enemy to the peace, good order, and happiness of human society.

Seventhly. If, still further, this averson* to the negro arises out of the fact that he is as we see him, poor, spiritless, ignorant, and degraded, then whatever is humane, noble, and superior, in the mind of the superior and more fortunate race, will desire that all arbitrary barriers against his manhood, intelligence, and elevation shall be removed, and a fair chance in the race of life be given him.

The first of these propositions does not require discussion. It commends itself to the understanding at once. Natural qualities are common and universal, and do not change essentially on the mountain or in the valley. I come therefore to the second point -- the existence of countries where this malignant prejudice, as we know it in America, does not prevail; where character, not color, is the passport to consideration; where the right of the black man to be a man, and a man among men, is not questioned; where he may, without offense, even presume to be a gentleman. That there are such countries in the world there is ample evidence. Intelligent and observing travelers, having no theory to support, men whose testimony would be received without question in respect of any other matter, and should not be questioned in this, tell us that they find no color prejudice in Europe, except among Americans who reside there. In England and on the Continent, the colored man is no more an object of hate than any other person. He mingles with the multitude unquestioned, without offense given or received. During the two years which the writer spent abroad, though he was much in society, and was sometimes in the company of lords and ladies, he does not remember one word, look, or gesture that indicated the slightest aversion to him on account of color. His experience was not in this respect exceptional or singular. Messrs. Remond, Ward, Garnet, Brown, Pennington, Crummell, and Bruce, all of them colored, and some of them black, bear the same testimony. If what these gentleman say (and it can be corroborated by a thousand witnesses) is true there is no prejudice against color in England, save as it is carried there by Americans -- carried there as a moral disease from an infected country. It is American, not European; local, not general; limited, not universal, and must be ascribed to artificial conditions, and not to any fixed and universal law of nature.

The third point is: Can this prejudice against color, as it is called, be accounted for by circumstances outside and independent of race or color? If it can be thus explained, an incubus may be removed from the breasts of both the white and the black people of this country, as well as from that large intermediate population which has sprung up between these alleged irreconcilable extremes. It will help us to see that it is not necessary that the Ethiopian shall change his skin, nor needful that the white man shall change the essential elements of his nature, in order that mutual respect and consideration may exist between the two races.

Now it is easy to explain the conditions outside of race or color from which may spring feelings akin to those which we call prejudice. A man without the ability or the disposition to pay a just debt does not feel at ease in the presence of his creditor. He does not want to meet him on the street, or in the market-place. Such meeting makes him uncomfortable. He would rather find fault with the bill than pay the debt, and the creditor himself will soon develop in the eyes of the debtor qualities not altogether to his taste.

Some one has well said, we may easily forgive those who injure us, but it is hard to forgive those whom we injure. The greatest injury this side of death, which one human being can inflict on another, is to enslave him, to blot out his personality, degrade his manhood, and sink him to the condition of a beast of burden; and just this has been done here during more than two centuries. No other people under heaven, of whatever type or endowments, could have been so enslaved without falling into contempt and scorn on the part of those enslaving them. Their slavery would itself stamp them with odious features, and give their oppressors arguments in favor of oppression. Besides the long years of wrong and injury inflicted upon the colored race in this country, and the effect of these wrongs upon that race, morally, intellectually, and physically, corrupting their morals, darkening their minds, and twisting their bodies and limbs out of all approach to symmetry, there has been a mountain of gold -- uncounted millions of dollars -- resting upon them with crushing weight. During all the years of their bondage, the slave master had a direct interest in discrediting the personality of those he held as property. Every man who had a thousand dollars so invested had a thousand reasons for painting the black man as fit only for slavery. Having made him the companion of horses and mules, he naturally sought to justify himself by assuming that the negro was not much better than a mule. The holders of twenty hundred million dollars' worth of property in human chattels procured the means of influencing press, pulpit, and politician, and through these instrumentalities they belittled our virtues and magnified our vices, and have made us odious in the eyes of the world. Slavery had the power at one time to make and unmake Presidents, to construe the law, dictate the policy, set the fashion in national manners and customs, interpret the Bible, and control the church; and, naturally enough, the old masters set themselves up as much too high as they set the manhood of the negro too low. Out of the depths of slavery has come this prejudice and this color line. It is broad enough and black enough to explain all the malign influences which assail the newly emancipated millions to-day. In reply to this argument it will perhaps be said that the negro has no slavery now to contend with, and that having been free during the last sixteen years, he ought by this time to have contradicted the degrading qualities which slavery formerly ascribed to him. All very true as to the letter, but utterly false as to the spirit. Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic. The money motive for assailing the negro which slavery represented is indeed absent, but love of power and dominion, strengthened by two centuries of irresponsible power, still remains.

Having now shown how slavery created and sustained this prejudice against race and color, and the powerful motive for its creation, the other four points made against it need not be discussed in detail and at length, but may only be referred to in a general way.

If what is called the instinctive aversion of the white race for the colored, when analyzed, is seen to be the same as that which men feel or have felt toward other objects wholly apart from color; if it should be the same as that sometimes exhibited by the haughty and rich to the humble and poor, the same as the Brahmin feels toward the lower caste, the same as the Norman felt toward the Saxon, the same as that cherished by the Turk against Christians, the same as Christians have felt toward the Jews, the same as that which murders a Christian in Wallachia, calls him a "dog" in Constantinople, oppresses and persecutes a Jew in Berlin, hunts down a socialist in St. Petersburg, drives a Hebrew from an hotel at Saratoga, that scorns the Irishman in London, the same as Catholics once felt for Protestants, the same as that which insults, abuses, and kills the Chinaman on the Pacific slope -- then may we well enough affirm that this prejudice really has nothing whatever to do with race or color, and that it has its motive and mainspring in some other source with which the mere facts of color and race have nothing to do.

After all, some very well informed and very well meaning people will read what I have now said, and what seems to me so just and reasonable, and will still insist that the color of the negro has something to do with the feeling entertained toward him; that the white man naturally shudders at the thought of contact with one who is black -- that the impulse is one which he can neither resist nor control. Let us see if this conclusion is a sound one. An argument is unsound when it proves too little or too much, or when it proves nothing. If color is an offense, it is so, entirely apart from the manhood it envelops. There must be something in color of itself to kindle rage and inflame hate, and render the white man generally uncomfortable. If the white man were really so constituted that color were, in itself, a torment to him, this grand old earth of ours would be no place for him. Colored objects confront him here at every point of the compass. If he should shrink and shudder every time he sees anything dark, he would have little time for anything else. He would require a colorless world to live in -- a world where flowers, fields, and floods should all be of snowy whiteness; where rivers, lakes, and oceans should all be white; where all the men, and women, and children should be white; where all the fish of the sea, all the birds of the air, all the "cattle upon a thousand hills," should be white; where the heavens above and the earth beneath should be white, and where day and night should not be divided by light and darkness, but the world should be one eternal scene of light. In such a white world, the entrance of a black man would be hailed with joy by the inhabitants. Anybody or anything would be welcome that would break the oppressive and tormenting monotony of the all-prevailing white.

In the abstract, there is no prejudice against color. No man shrinks from another because he is clothed in a suit of black, nor offended with his boots because they are black. We are told by those who have resided there that a white man in Africa comes to think that ebony is about the proper color for man. Good old Thomas Whitson -- a noble old Quaker -- a man of rather odd appearance -- used to say that even he would be handsome if he could change public opinion.

Aside from the curious contrast to himself, the white child feels nothing on the first sight of a colored man. Curiosity is the only feeling. The office of color in the color line is a very plain and subordinate one. It simply advertises the objects of oppression, insult, and persecution. It is not the maddening liquor, but the black letters on the sign telling the world where it may be had. It is not the hated Quaker, but the broad brim and the plain coat. It is not the hateful Cain, but the mark by which he is known. The color is innocent enough, but things with which it is coupled make it hated. Slavery, ignorance, stupidity, servility, poverty, dependence, are undesirable conditions. When these shall cease to be coupled with color, there will be no color line drawn. It may help in this direction to observe a few of the inconsistencies of the color-line feeling, for it is neither uniform in its operations nor consistent in its principles. Its contradictions in the latter respect would be amusing if the feeling itself were not so deserving of unqualified abhorrence. Our Californian brothers, of Hibernian descent, hate the Chinaman, and kill him, and when asked why they do so, their answer is that a Chinaman is so industrious he will do all the work, and can live by wages upon which other people would starve. When the same people and others are asked why they hate the colored people, the answer is that they are indolent and wasteful, and cannot take care of themselves. Statesmen of the South will tell you that the negro is too ignorant and stupid properly to exercise the elective franchise, and yet his greatest offense is that he acts with the only party intelligent enough in the eyes of the nation to legislate for the country. In one breath they tell us that the negro is so weak in intellect, and so destitute of manhood, that he is but the echo of designing white men, and yet in another they will virtually tell you that the negro is so clear in his moral perceptions, so firm in purpose, so steadfast in his convictions, that he cannot be persuaded by arguments or intimidated by threats, and that nothing but the shot-gun can restrain him from voting for the men and measures he approves. They shrink back in horror from contact with the negro as a man and a gentleman, but like him very well as a barber, waiter, coachman, or cook. As a slave, he could ride anywhere, side by side with his white master, but as a freeman, he must be thrust into the smoking-car. As a slave, he could go into the first cabin; as a freeman, he was not allowed abaft the wheel. Formerly it was said he was incapable of learning, and at the same time it was a crime against the State for any man to teach him to read. To-day he is said to be originally and permanently inferior to the white race, and yet wild apprehensions are expressed lest six millions of this inferior race will somehow or other manage to rule over thirty-five millions of the superior race. If inconsistency can prove the hollowness of anything, certainly the emptiness of this pretense that color has any terrors is easily shown. The trouble is that most men, and especially mean men, want to have something under them. The rich man would have the poor man, the white would have the black, the Irish would have the negro, and the negro must have a dog, if he can get nothing higher in the scale of intelligence to dominate. This feeling is one of the vanities which enlightenment will dispel. A good but simple-minded Abolitionist said to me that he was not ashamed to walk with me down Broadway arm-in-arm, in open daylight, and evidently thought he was saying something that must be very pleasing to my self-importance, but it occurred to me, at the moment, this man does not dream of any reason why I might be ashamed to walk arm-in-arm with him through Broadway in open daylight. Riding in a stage-coach from Concord, New Hampshire, to Vergennes, Vermont, many years ago, I found myself on very pleasant terms with all the passengers through the night, but the morning light came to me as it comes to the stars; I was as Dr. Beecher says he was at the first fire he witnessed, when a bucket of cold water was poured down his back -- "the fire was not put out, but he was." The fact is, the higher the colored man rises in the scale of society, the less prejudice does he meet.

The writer has met and mingled freely with the leading great men of his time, -- at home and abroad, in public halls and private houses, on the platform and at the fireside, -- and can remember no instance when among such men has he been made to feel himself an object of aversion. Men who are really great are too great to be small. This was gloriously true of the late Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Wilson, John P. Hale, Lewis Tappan, Edmund Quincy, Joshua R. Giddings, Gerrit Smith, and Charles Sumner, and many others among the dead. Good taste will not permit me now to speak of the living, except to say that the number of those who rise superior to prejudice is great and increasing. Let those who wish to see what is to be the future of America, as relates to races and race relations, attend, as I have attended, during the administration of President Hayes, the grand diplomatic receptions at the executive mansion, and see there, as I have seen, in its splendid east room, the wealth, culture, refinement, and beauty of the nation assembled, and with it the eminent representatives of other nations, -- the swarthy Turk with his "fez," the Englishman shining with gold, the German, the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Japanese, the Chinaman, the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Sandwich Islander, and the negro, -- all moving about freely, each respecting the rights and dignity of the other, and neither receiving nor giving offense.

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Socialism & Democracy

Du bois and the question of the color line: race and class in the age of globalization.

When we engage W.E.B. 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). The concept of the color-line refers essentially to the role of race and racism in history and society. 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. 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).

After 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. 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. 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).

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. 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. Indeed, he anticipates wars of liberation more ferocious than the imperialist wars of conquest, suppression, colonialism, and settlerism. Thus, he states that "as wild and awful as this shameful war [W.W.I] was, it is nothing to compare with that fight for freedom which black and brown and yellow men must and will make unless their oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of the White World cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present treatment just as long as it must and not a moment more " (1920: 28; Du Bois's italics).

Du Bois anticipates here the Vietnam liberation struggle which ruptures the continuity and confidence of European dominance and the subsequent liberation struggles in Africa, Asia, Latin America and even within the U.S. at that time of fundamental turning, the decade of the Reaffirmation of the 60s (Karenga, 2002a: 183ff). And he also anticipates in his dire warning the wars of state terrorism and oppressed peoples' fierce response to them, using whatever weapons and means they can, arguing security for all or none for any, justice for all or no peace for any and freedom for all or ongoing war, disruption and insecurity for everyone (Ahmad, 2002).

Certainly, the current and ongoing relevance of the color line concept is expressed in how it provides critical and comparative insight into one of the most pressing problems of our times-the practices and processes of globalization (Lusane, 1997; Martin & Shumann, 1997). For globalization, regardless of its disguises and deceptive discourse on democracy and the spreading of civilization and technology, can be usefully understood as a color line project. In fact, it can be seen as a current expression of white supremacy with an enhanced technological capacity to impose itself on the world. In a word, globalization expresses itself as a racialist global project of coercive homogenization of the peoples of the world, politically, economically and culturally, with European peoples as both the central power and paradigm (Munford, 2001). In such an asymmetrical project, Europeans are, of course, the principal beneficiaries, and the peoples of color are the victims and bearers of the burden and the costs, as Du Bois contends in his color-line proposition.

The color line is established when Europe problematizes the existence, meaning, color, worth, and status of the peoples of color. Du Bois speaks to this problematization in the preface to autobiographical work Dusk of Dawn , saying, "My life had its significance and its only deep significance because it was part of a Problem; but that problem was, as I continue to think, the central problem of the world's democracies and so the Problem of the future world" (1940: vii-viii). To problematize the existence and lives of peoples of color, Europe constructs a bio-social identity called race (Gordon, 2000a). Du Bois's categories of "color" and "color-line" are synonyms of race. Du Bois tells us that with the construction of the concept of race "'color' became in the world's thought synonymous with inferiority" (1915: 362). It became a designation of devaluation, degradation and domination. For race stripped of all its pseudo-scientific claims is essentially a socio-biological category used to assign human worth and social status using whites as the paradigm (Karenga, 2002a: 306). In such a construction, the closer one is to the paradigm, the higher one's human worth and social status. And likewise, the farther a person or people is away from that paradigm, the lower their human worth and social status.

The system of social practice which is organized around this concept of race on the national and international level is racism. It is important here to distinguish racial prejudice and racism. For racial prejudice is an attitude of hostility and hatred toward persons and peoples based on negative assumptions about biology and culture. But "racism is the imposition of this attitude as social policy and social practice. In other words, racism is a system of denial, deformation and destruction of a people's history, humanity and right to freedom based exclusively or primarily on the specious concept of race" (Ibid., 305).

Racism expresses itself in three basic ways. First, it is a violent act of imposition . As a mode of domination, racism is defined above all by its violent character, its disruption and progressive destruction of a people's life whether it is called colonialism, imperialism, the Holocaust of enslavement, neo-colonialism, settlerism, occupation, or globalization (Fanon, 1968; Cesaire, 1972; Cabral, 1969). Secondly, racism expresses itself as ideology or more precisely an ideology of justification of the imposition. It is an ideology which ranges from the rawest of biological, religious and cultural absurdities to elaborate intellectual and pseudo-intellectual projects masquerading as social science. Indeed, Du Bois recognizes this ideological aspect of racism calling it "race fiction." He also calls attention to how "it has for years held back the progress of the social sciences" employed in the service of domination (1944: 422), and calls for new social sciences, indeed new human sciences (Gordon, 2000b). He states that "the social sciences from the beginning were deliberately used as instruments to prove the inferiority of the majority of the people of the world, who were being used as slaves for the comfort and culture of the masters." He criticizes history for its dehistoricization of African people; biology for its exaggeration of physical differences; economics for its inability to "talk straight on colonial imperialism"; and psychology for "the shame of its intelligence tests and its record of 'conclusions' during the First World War." And he calls for a "wide dissemination of truth" to counter the ideological and justificatory aspect of racism (1944: 423). He especially stresses the need for "deliberate and organized action in the front where race fiction is being used to prolong economic inequality and injustice in the world." Moreover, he calls for "a modern missionary movement, not in the interest of religious dogma, but to dissipate the economic illiteracy which clouds modern thought." Here Du Bois stresses the need for a political economy which demonstrates the intersection of race and class in the calculus of global domination, and suggests a "union.across the race line" to end exploitation and domination on the national and international levels (Ibid., 424).

Finally, racism expresses itself as institutional arrangement , as structures and processes which promote and perpetuate the imposition and ideology. The educational system, the media, the courts, the legislative bodies, and the economic structures from small businesses to transnational corporations all contribute to the promotion and perpetuation of systemic racism. The practices of transnational structures-such as corporations and now the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, etc.-show the prophetic character of Du Bois's perception of the intersection of race, class and national interests of white nations over and against the interests of the world's peoples of color. For, as noted above, the process of globalization has its roots in the classical period of imperialist expansion (Raudzens, 1999). What is definitely new is an enhanced technology at various levels, which increases European people's capacity for domination and coercive homogenization in the world, with the USA as the single superpower.

It is in this context of the racist problematization of his very presence, and of the lives of the world's peoples of color, that Du Bois comes into critical consciousness and takes up the cause of the "darker peoples of the world" in terms of both racial and cultural imperialism. He states that "Had it not been for the race problem early thrust on me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the social order and economic development into which I was born." But he is constantly confronted with "the truth in the world," and at the core of this knowledge of the world were "the problems of racial and cultural contacts" (1920: 572f).

Du Bois's concern with the color line as a central problem of the 20th century finds its newest expression in the 21st century, then, in what we might understand not only as continuing European domination and exploitation of peoples of color, but also and more than ever as the Europeanization of human culture and consciousness. And it is this imposition of views and values, as well as political and economic practices and projects, which has provoked such sustained and severe responses from various segments of the communities of color around the world (Zepezauer, 2002a; Ahmad, 2002; Karenga, 2002b; Barber, 1996). By the Europeanization of human consciousness and culture I mean the systematic invasion and effective transformation of the cultural consciousness and practice of the various peoples of color of the world by Europeans (whites) (Karenga, 2002a: 25f). This is achieved essentially through technology, education, and the media, and yields three basic results. First, the process produces a progressive loss and replacement of the historical memories of peoples of color. Second, it yields the progressive disappreciation of themselves and their culture as a result of a conscious and unconscious assessment of themselves using European standards. And finally, it encourages the progressive adoption of a Eurocentric view not only of themselves, but also of each other and the world. "This in turn leads to damage and distortion of their own humanity and the increasing degeneration of the cultural diversity and exchange which gave humanity its rich variousness and internal creative challenge."

Here it is important to recognize the centrality of culture as both a ground and support of freedom and an instrument of suppression and domination (Cabral, 1973). Du Bois recognizes this, arguing that at first he did not question "what the white world was doing, its goals and ideals," which he "had not doubted were quite right." His concern was the white world's rejection of him in spite of his ability. But later he would realize how this concept and practice of European civilization presented him with the paradoxes of freedom and enslavement, ideals of peace and realities of war, humanism and racism, universal man and racial stereotypes. In a word, as Fanon would later describe it (1966: 252), the paradox of a Europe "where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their streets, in all the corners of the globe." Fanon goes on to argue what Du Bois could easily endorse, i.e., a need for us to "reconsider the question of mankind" (254f). And at the core of this proposition is the question of "the Third World starting a new history of Man," free of the crimes against humanity, the stratification, and "the bloodthirsty tensions fed by classes.the racial hatreds, slavery, exploitation, and above all the bloodless genocide which consisted in the setting aside of fifteen thousand millions [ sic ] of men." This "setting aside" of people is of course the racist construction of a color bar-denying and diminishing life choices and life conditions of dignity and decency and narrowing the road to maximum human freedom and human flourishing.

In his classic essay "The African Roots of War," Du Bois (1915) poses a series of paradoxes inherent in the imperialist expansion of his time which we now call globalization. These paradoxes not only reflect the relevance of race in a critical understanding of the project, but also the intersection of race and class, color and condition, and place and power in this process.

Peace and Imperialist Expansion. The first paradox is the pursuit of peace in the midst of imperialist expansion. He notes that as a result of World War I, Europe was planning "the disarmament of Europe and a European international world police" (1915: 370). And yet while discussing its own peace, Europe was conducting, provoking and supporting various forms of imperialist war and violence in the rest of the world. Du Bois asks then "Must the rest of the world be left naked to the inevitable horror of war, especially when we know that it is directly in this outer circle of races, and not in the inner European household, that the real causes of present European fighting are to be found?"

Du Bois seeks to stress here the European struggle among themselves for control over the human and material resources of peoples of color, and to discuss what it means to Africans and the world (Keene, 2001). These are for him wars of domination and exploitation, regardless of the convenient appeals to democracy, civilization, and other self-congratulatory categories European nations claim. Surely, the colonial and imperialist wars of the 20th century and their continuation in the 21st century in various forms, most notably in our time as the so-called war against terrorism, reaffirm Du Bois's insight that peace for European peoples did not mean peace for peoples of color. On the contrary, war against the peoples of color was perceived as a way Europeans could establish peace and advantage for themselves, and whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Middle East, this tends even today to hold true (Blum, 1995). Moreover, the concern for control of resources such as oil and other strategic materials and strategic space has led not only to an ongoing series of so-called low-intensity wars, but also to sustained brutal suppression in Palestine, war in Afghanistan, and currently the imminent threat of war with Iraq, in spite of claims of a war against terrorism and for civilization in the interest of humankind (Zunes, 2002). But Du Bois warns the European powers that they cannot have peace just for themselves and that peoples of color will fight for freedom, justice and equality until it is achieved in the world. Indeed, he states "We shall not drive war from this world until we treat them as free and equal citizens in a world democracy of all races and nations" (1915: 368).

Democratic despotism. The second paradox Du Bois identifies as that of "democratic despotism," an ongoing brutal domination masked in the disguise and discourse of democracy. He notes, "It is this paradox which allows in America the most rapid advance of democracy to go hand-in-hand in its very centers with increased aristocracy and hatred toward darker races, and which excuses and defends an inhumanity that does not shrink from the public burning of human beings" (1915: 363). He concludes that in spite of white American and general European conversation about bringing democracy to the world, racial domination disguised as the pursuit of democracy domestically and internationally is the regular reality. And certainly, nowhere was this clearer than in the domestic policies of the USA, South Africa and Brazil, and in the colonial policies of the white nations of the world (Marx, 1998). But also in recent times, globalization and increasing corporate power in the USA has certainly diminished or at least made problematic any serious claims to democracy for all (Martin and Shumann, 1997; Greider, 1993).

This insight into the "paradox of democratic despotism" prefigures Malcolm X's (1965: 26) concept of African Americans as "victims of democracy" rather than its beneficiaries given the racist character of U.S. society. In fact, he defines this form of democracy as "nothing but disguised hypocrisy." For Malcolm, then, U.S. society was essentially a herrenvolk democracy, a ruling-race democracy in which the key benefits society offered were essentially for the ruling race. Du Bois notes that in such a context on both the national and international levels, cross-racial alliances and common struggles are undermined. For both white owners and workers benefit from an enhanced life of comfort and convenience made possible through the heightened exploitation of the human and material resources of peoples of color around the world.

Moreover, in such a context even whites in less comfortable circumstances could find a measure of psychological gratification by identifying with the racist self-referentiality of European peoples and cultures which posed themselves as superior and uniquely civilized. Du Bois points out that the white working class had become complicit in the exploitation of the people of color because of the promise of wealth, power and luxury previously unseen. He notes that they ""have been asked to share the spoils of exploiting...," the peoples of color of the world. And the exploiting class was enlarged to include the whole nation bound together not simply by "sentimental patriotism, loyalty or ancestor worship," but rather by "increased wealth, power and luxury for all classes on a scale the world never saw before." Du Bois concedes that "the laborers are not yet getting, to be sure, as large a share as they want or will get, and they are still at the bottom large and restless excluded classes." But he asserts, "the laborer's equity is recognized and his just share is a matter of time, intelligence and skillful negotiation" (1915: 363f). Thus is created the propaganda and process of racializing work and workers, not only distinguishing them by color but assigning different kinds of work and different levels of monetary and other benefits for this work. It is both a domestic and international process that will have a profound effect not only on the history of the labor movement, but also on race relations throughout the world.

Certainly, the current globalization thrust recalls Du Bois's insight about the ruling race/class's building of a racialized consensus around the reputed benefit and need of the project. And, of course, this consensus is reaffirmed in the post-9/11 context in which not only white economic and political interests, but also the security of the country, are posed as under threat. With a heightened sense of vulnerability and trauma as a result of the attack on the U.S., the American population is called upon to sacrifice rights and liberties, support ill-defined and unjust wars, and reduce dissent in the interest of country and cause, i.e., "the war on terrorism" (Chang, 2002). In any case, in spite of the call to all races to join in, the core of the project is racialized although it is most often camouflaged under religious, cultural and even national designations and discourse. The profiling and criminalization of Arabs, Muslims and certain nations of these peoples in this so-called security initiative by the state, recalls the criminalization and mass incarceration of another people of color, the Japanese, and the call for the country to accept it in the interest of national security and the war effort.

Civilized Savagery. Here Du Bois introduces another paradox of color-line thought and practice-the paradox of "civilized savagery" or savagery in the midst of claims to civilization. Having appropriated for themselves the self-congratulatory status of "civilized," Europeans -continental and diasporan-easily assign the opposite categories of savage, uncivilized, etc., to people of color. This, of course, can be found even in modern times in repeated references to the "civilized world" which one must assume applies essentially to European peoples and others fortunate enough to receive this honorary status having faithfully embraced the European paradigm. Du Bois, however, is not so much concerned with the exclusivity of the European claim as he is with the savage character of its practice in regard to the people of color of the world. He notes how "lying treaties, . murder, assassination, mutilation, rape and torture have marked the progress of Englishman, German, Frenchman and Belgian on the Dark continent" (1915: 361). Moreover, he notes that as a result of their "war-engendering jealousies" and struggle for imperial advantage in Africa and the rest of the world, they have launched "this unspeakably inhuman outrage on decency and intelligence and religion which we call the World War." (367f). Thus, despite Europe's claim to civilized status, its actual practice its barbaric treatment of peoples of color and the brutal destructiveness of World War I, which Du Bois calls "the present holocaust" problematizes the claim.

In his article titled "Mexico" in the Crisis magazine (1914: 409), Du Bois criticizes the U.S.'s threat to declare war on Mexico for a minor incident. He sees it as another effort to subdue and exploit a country of color, masked like classical imperialism as a "civilizing mission." He asks, "how much civilization can we teach the world, anyway?" And "are we civilized," ourselves? Noting the brutal character of the so-called civilizing mission of classical imperialism, he asserts that "We may blunder into murder and shame and call it a Mexican War. But it will not be war. It will be crime."

Again, Du Bois calls our attention to the tendency of those who claim to be most civilized to act with savage intensity in race and class suppression, insisting that they have a duty to impose their paradigm and interests on the rest of the vulnerable world. Certainly, discussions such as Huntington's "clash of civilizations" (1997) and the need to defend European soi-disant civilization against the devalued peoples of the world represent a continuing pattern of racialized interpretations of the world and European peoples' assertion in the world. This brutal interpretation of white people's role as bringers and protectors of "civilization," democracy, freedom and a host of other self-congratulatory claims is clearly expanded and made more urgent in the so-called "war on terrorism." And the racial aspects of the campaign in the U.S. and around the world are clear even with the camouflage of religious and cultural discourse (AbuKhalil, 2002).

In the midst of the white or European nations' globalization of racism as an adjunct and essential aid to the political, economic and cultural domination in the world, Du Bois embraces three major initiatives reflective of his commitment to freedom, justice and equality of the peoples of color and humanity as a whole. These are socialism, the peace movement, and Pan-Africanism.

The Socialist Initiative. Du Bois's road to socialism lies in his critical grasp of the intersection between race and class in the calculus of imperialist expansion. He recognized that imperialism was at its core an economic project, i.e., for acquisition and control of the resources of the world. But he also recognized that fundamental victims and workers in this process, "consist overwhelmingly of the dark workers of Asia, Africa, the islands of the sea and South and Central America." "These," he notes, "are the ones who support a superstructure of wealth, luxury, and extravagance" for the white nations of the world (1939: 283). And it is this intersection of racial domination and economic exploitation that defines the central problem of the 20th century for him as the problem of the color-line.

His assumption is that given the all-consuming profit motive which stands at the heart of capitalism, a socialist alternative focused on issues of common human good was imperative. In a commentary on socialism in the Chicago Defender (1948: 353), he defines socialism as "the attempt to regulate the activities of men for the good of the mass of people, instead of letting government or industry be run for the benefit of certain individuals." He calls communism "the most extreme proposal of socialism" and notes that it is "socialism based on dictatorship and force, and designed to introduce immediately the complete socialistic state." His interest is and remained in a democratic socialism, in spite of his defiant joining of the Community Party USA to assert his self-determination and right to dissent after decades of government persecution and harassment.

Du Bois, in this brief article, lays out other essential elements of his democratic socialism rooted in the principle of political economy directed toward the common good. These elements include: (1) governmental intervention in planning and regulating "to a certain degree" of corporate activity; (2) public ownership of "a considerable part of capital"; (3) a limit on profits; and (4) limit private "initiative and enterprise whenever they interfere with the common good." For him the critical question that arises from this vision of common good is whether the demands of social justice are served best by greater "democratic control" of the corporate process or by private control. The recent corporate scandals tend to highlight the importance of Du Bois's call for government intervention and a more democratic participation, ownership and decision-making in the corporate process.

Du Bois also argued the centrality of Africans in this historical movement and project. The centrality of Africans lies in two areas: as a test of the authenticity of the socialist project, and as a vanguard in the movement given their social location in the race/class hierarchy of the nation and world. Actually, the social location of Africa in the national and international race/class hierarchy is the hub and hinge on which Du Bois's concept of African centrality in the socialist project turns, given that in the racist scheme of things, Africans, as argued above, are assigned the lowest human worth and social status and are what Du Bois calls "the Excluded class." In his article "Socialism and the Negro Problem in the New Review , he states that "the essence of Social Democracy is that there shall be no excluded or exploited classes in the Socialistic state" (1913: 339). Thus, "I've come to believe that the test of any great movement toward social reform is the Excluded class." And given that Black people are indeed the definitive excluded class, "The Black Problem then is the great test of American socialism." This assumption is also made in the world context for the people of color of the world who are "the excluded" in the globalized imperialist project.

Here (338f) he raises a series of critical questions to test the authenticity and viability of the socialist project: "Can the problem of any group of 10,000,000 be properly considered as 'aside' from any program of Socialism? Can the objects of Socialism be achieved so long as the [African American] is neglected? Can any great human problem 'wait'?" Clearly, the answer to all these questions is a resounding "no," and Du Bois thus reaffirms the essentiality, even centrality of addressing the Black and race question, to creating a just and good society. And it is essential not only because of the condition of exclusion, but also because of the revolutionary potential of those at the bottom of the social ladder. Moreover, added to this is the history of heroic resistance that African Americans would bring to the socialist project. Again, Du Bois stresses the world-historical aspect of this struggle for shared wealth and common good. He states that "All humanity must share in the future industrial democracy of the world." And "of course the foundation of such a system must be a high, ethical ideal. We must really envisage the wants of humanity. We must want the wants of men." Indeed, he concludes "these disinherited darker peoples must either share in the future industrial democracy or overturn the world" (1920: 59, 58)

The World Peace initiative. Du Bois's discourse on peace has a long and instructive history. From the beginning he had contended peace was a central goal and good of humankind, but that it must be based on justice, mutual respect, freedom and other shared goods of the world. In his credo in Darkwater (1920), he states "I believe that war is murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength." Again, key to his struggle for peace was his insistence on mutual respect, freedom and justice in the world. In his article on "The Races in Conference" (1910), he notes that "The Races Congress is the meeting of the World on a broad plane of human respect and equality. In no other way is human understanding and world peace and progress possible." What is called for, he states, is "real democracy of races and nations" (407f). Appreciating efforts by the peace movement, moral reform and social uplift efforts to win the hearts of peoples, he adds that we must put forth. above all, efforts that aim at shared goods for the world, "efforts which aim to make humanity not the attribute of the arrogant and the exclusive, but the heritage of all men in a world where most men are colored."

In "Prospect of a World Without Race Conflict" (1944), Du Bois is not sanguine about the prospect of a quick resolution of racial conflict and war. But he finds hope and possibilities in the rising struggles of peoples of color. Of special interest is his reference to the triple heritage of Latinos-Native American, African and European-and the role white racism played in dividing the peoples and yet the promising "signs of an insurgent native culture, striking across the color line toward economic freedom, political self-rule and more complete equality between races" (1944: 417). Currently, Latinos' stress on "mestizaje" as a defining feature of their identity and the basis for a more inclusive multicultural struggle recalls Du Bois's aspiration that Africans and other peoples of color would recognize a shared human heritage and pose a new paradigm of how humans ought to build and share the world (Karenga, 2002a: 399-405).

The Pan-Africanist initiative. Du Bois is clearly one of the founding fathers of Pan-Africanism (Walters, 1997; Ajala, 1973; Padmore, 1971). His interest in Africa and African liberation and African peoples' contribution to the forward flow of human history evolves early. His interest and commitment begin with his identification of himself as African and his stated belief "in the African Race, in the beauty of its genius, the sweetness of its soul, and its strength." (1920: 1). Moreover, in this same credo he reaffirms his "belief in pride of race and lineage and self, in pride so deep as to scorn injustice to ourselves, in pride of lineage so great as to despise no man's father, in pride of race so chivalrous as neither to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong."

Du Bois's conception of Africa is multidimensional and his works on Africa reflect this, i.e., The Negro (1915), "The African Roots of War" (1915); The Gift of Black Folk (1924); Black Folk Then and Now (1924) and The World and Africa (1946). First Du Bois approaches Africa as the place of origin of the basic culture of African Americans, and in Souls of Black Folk and elsewhere he seeks to identify the defining characteristic of this cultural legacy. It is, of course, a deep spiritual, ethical and artistic legacy above all (Du Bois, 1925). Also inherent in his description of the people is their communal approach to life which he later argues offers an important contribution to the socialist vision.

Secondly, Du Bois sees Africa as the place of origin of world civilization, flourishing "when Europe was a wilderness" (1920: 32), and thus a place worthy of critical study for models of human excellence and possibility. Here it is important that only in some areas can Du Bois be said to have been Afrocentric in the Asantean sense of the concept (1998, 1990). For Asante (1998: 2), "Afrocentricity.means literally placing African ideals at the center of any analysis that involves African culture and behavior." Du Bois is more of a "race man" in the sense of his credo, defiantly proud of his own people and self, but not constantly concerned to speak from an African-centered perspective. At times, he seeks to achieve a synthesis of the best of African and European. But in most cases, he is thoroughly steeped in European concepts. It is a reality he recognizes early, as noted above, but from which he cannot entirely disengage.

Du Bois is not grounded in classical African culture and its contribution to world culture through the Nile Valley civilizations (Karenga, 1996). Nor is he grounded in the profound moral anthropology and ethics of the Odu Ifa , the sacred text of ancient Yorubaland which teaches that "humans are chosen to bring good in the world" and that this is the fundamental meaning and mission of human life (Karenga 1999). Indeed, he is ambivalent about Egypt's Blackness although he concedes some African input, especially in later writings. Especially important here is his lack of grounding in that aspect of classical African culture, especially Egypt, which gave the world its oldest social justice tradition, taught that humans are bearers of dignity and divinity, the oneness of being, the sacredness of life and the ethical obligation to constantly repair and restore the world (Karenga, 1996).

It is this ancient social justice tradition that is raised up and reaffirmed in the historic Million Man March/Day of Absence in October 1995. The Million Man March/Day of Absence Mission Statement appeals to this ancient and ongoing social justice tradition and calls on African men and women of the world to uphold and struggle to defend and promote this tradition. It offers public policy initiatives Du Bois would have embraced and announces as its core obligations the "reaffirming the best values of our social justice tradition which require respect for the dignity and rights of the human person, economic justice, meaningful political participation, shared power, cultural integrity, mutual respect for all peoples, and uncompromising resistance to social forces and structures which deny or limit these" (Karenga, 1995: 2).

In the absence of knowledge of this ancient and ongoing tradition, Du Bois borrows from Europe many of his concepts and assumes European origin for some that are not necessarily derivative. But one must hasten to say that as a radical intellectual he reshapes these concepts in more human and meaningful forms and in the process makes a seminal and enduring contribution to Black intellectual history. Thus, this does not in any way diminish the value of his work, it is only noted to distinguish different ways one can be committed to one's people. And it is always important to make this delineation for those who through theoretical clumsiness or categorical imprecision use the category Afrocentricity recklessly and/or without the rigor that critical analysis requires.

Another way in which Du Bois views Africa is as a continuing battleground for white nations in their constant quest for resources, as noted in our earlier discussion of "The African Roots of War" (1915; also published in Darkwater [1920] as "The Hands of Ethiopia"). In this essay, Du Bois combines his commitments to Pan-Africanism, peace, and the socialist alternative to war, exploitation and oppression.

Finally, Du Bois also poses Africa as a land of possibility and paradigms. He understands it as a focus and generative force for a Pan-African ideal of solidarity and common struggle of African peoples all over the world. His aspiration and his life work were to see Africans united in a common struggle not only to free the continent but, in Fanon's phrase, to "start a new history of humankind." He stated that "when once the Blacks of the United States, the West Indies and Africa work and think together the future of the Black man in the modern world is safe" (1954: 403). Linking the Pan-Africanist and socialist projects, he said, "As the world turns toward Africa as a great center of future activity and development and recognizes the ancient socialism of Africa, [African Americans], freed of their baseless fear of Communism, will again turn their attention and aim their activity toward Africa" (402). They will, he states, see the capitalist exploitation of Africa, led by the U.S., and will dare struggle to aid in Africa's liberation and development and join other progressive peoples and forces to build a just world.

In the last section of "Africa and the Roots of War," Du Bois assigns a special and unique role for Africa and especially African Americans in the larger sense of the descendants of Africa who are "spread though the Americas and now writhing desperately for freedom and a place in the world." It is these Africans in the diaspora who with their brothers and sisters on the African continent, must imagine and pose a new paradigm of human freedom and human flourishing and engage in a common Pan-Africanist and socialist struggle with other progressive peoples to bring it into being.

He says, as Fanon would later reaffirm, that the world is waiting for something new from African peoples, a new paradigm of human society and human relations. And he asks, "What shall the end be? The world-old and fearful things, War and Wealth, Murder and Luxury? Or shall it be a new thing-a new peace and new democracy of all races: a great humanity of equal men? 'Semper novi quid ex Africa!' [Always something new out of Africa]" (1915: 371). And here he means Africa not simply as a continent, but as a world community rooted in a rich and ancient and ongoing history, culture and struggle to expand the realm of human freedom and human flourishing in the world, and through this, to pose and bring forth the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest and most promising sense.

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The Souls of Black Folk

W.e.b. du bois, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Du Bois begins his argument by declaring: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” and he repeats this statement several times throughout the book. The color line refers to the divide between races, often invisible but sometimes physical. The line is inherently hierarchical, ensuring that white people receive better treatment, services, and opportunities, while black people receive the inferior version—or nothing at all. The color line was instituted and solidified by slavery, yet has survived Emancipation and taken new forms. Jim Crow segregation, for example, is a particularly distinct way in which the color line is enshrined in the law and custom of the South. However, although the color line may seem overwhelmingly powerful and unbreakable, Du Bois suggests that it might be unstable. There is only so long that two races can live alongside one another in close but highly unequal proximity before the line between them is broken.

The Color Line Quotes in The Souls of Black Folk

The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.

Why was his hair tinted with gold? An evil omen was golden hair in my life. Why had not the brown of his eyes crushed out and killed the blue? –For brown were his father's eyes, and his father's father's. And thus in the Land of the Color-line I saw, as it fell across my baby, the shadow of the Veil.

The Color Line Symbol Timeline in The Souls of Black Folk

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The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays

Associate Professor of African American Studies

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This volume assembles essential essays by W. E. B. Du Bois from 1894 to early 1906. These show the first formulations of some of his most famous ideas, namely, “the veil,” “double-consciousness,” and the “problem of the color line.” The deep historical sense of the formation of the modern world that informed Du Bois's thought and gave rise to his understanding of “the problem of the color line” is displayed. Some of the essays were published posthumously, others are obscure, and one has only recently been translated. The essays constitute an essential companion to Du Bois's 1903 masterpiece The Souls of Black Folk . The collection presents the essays in their entirety and in strict chronological order, starting at the moment of Du Bois's return to the United States. Copious annotations are provided to enhance the reader's understanding.

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Home / Essay Samples / Literature / Web Dubois / W.E.B. Dubois: The Color Line Theory

W.E.B. Dubois: The Color Line Theory

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Bibliography

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Santoro, Wayne A. “The Civil Rights Movement and the Right to Vote: Black Protest, Segregationist Violence and the Audience.” Social Forces, vol. 86, no. 4, 2008, pp. 1391–1414. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20430815. Accessed 6 Mar. 2020.
Gonzalez 7 Sundstrom, William A. “The Color Line: Racial Norms and Discrimination in Urban Labor Markets, 1910-1950.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 54, no. 2, 1994, pp. 382–396. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2123919. Accessed 5 Mar. 2020.

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