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1392 An American Dilemma
found in Tuskegee tools to do its bidding. . . . Things came to such a pass that when
any Negro complained or advocated a course of action, he was silenced with the remark
that Mr. Washington did not agree with this. Naturally the bumptious irritated, ycung
black intelligentsia of the day declared, ‘1 don’t care a damn what Booker Washington
thinks. This is what I think, and I have a right to think.^ ” (W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk
[1940], pp. 73-75).
® Du Bois testifies: “The Guardian was bitter, satirical, and personal; but it was
well-edited, it was earnest, and it published facts. It attracted wide attention among
colored people: it circulated among them all over the country: it was quoted and
discussed. I did not wholly agree with the Guardian^ and indeed only a few Negroes
did, but nearly all read it and were influenced by it.” {lbid,y p. 73.)
Du Bois was then professor at Atlanta University. He had there started what has
been called “the first real sociological research in the South” (Guy B. Johnson, “Negro
Racial Movements and Leadership in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology
[July, 1937], p. 65.) When he did not get the support he hoped for to fulfill his
plan to study the Negro problem—^because Booker T. Washington and his group did
not endorse it, or so he believed— and later, when the N.A.A.C.P. was founded, he
left the University entirely. Another reason why he left was that he thought that his
connection with the University increased its difficulties in getting foundation support.
(See Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn^ pp. 68-95
Ibid.y p. 72.
James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way (1934), p. 313.
Following the Color Liney p. 219.
For the history of the Niagara Movement, see Ralph J. Bunche, “The Programs,
Ideologies, Tactics, and Achievements of Negro Betterment and Interracial Organiza-
tions,” unpublished manuscript prepared for this study (1940), Vol. I, pp. 15 if., and
W. E. B. Du Bois’ autobiography. Dusk of DawUy pp. 88-95.
Emmett J. Scott, The American Negro in the World War (1919), pp. 92-104
and 426-457; Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, pp. 245-256’; James Weldon Johnson, Along
This Wayy pp. 318-319.
James Weldon Johnson describes “the spirit of defiance born of desperation”
after the First World War and attributes to it the new racial radicalism of the period:
“With the close of the war went most of the illusions and high hopes American
Negroes had felt would be realized when it was seen that they were doing to the
utmost their bit at home and in the field. Eight months after the armistice, with black
men back fresh from the front, there broke the Red Summer of 1919, and the mingled
emotions of the race were bitterness, despair, and anger. There developed an attitude
of cynicism that was a characteristic foreign to the Negro. There developed also a
spirit of defiance born of desperation. These sentiments and reactions found varying
degrees of expression in the Negro publications throughout the country; but Harlem
became the centre where they were formulated and voiced to the Negroes of America
and the world. Radicalism in Harlem, which had declined as the war approached,
burst out anew. But it was something difl’erent from the formal radicalism of pre-war
days; it was a radicalism motivated by a fierce race consciousness.” {Black Manhattan
[1930], p. 246.)
For the history of the Garvey movement and a bibliography, see Bunche, op. o*t.,
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