'The Wounded World' by Chad L. Williams
W.E.B. DuBois was a towering Black intellectual at a time when intellect was necessary to establish the conditions for action. In 1903, when his epochal The Souls of Black Folk was published, Jim Crow was strictly enforced throughout the South, African Americans labored against legal and social barriers everywhere and even their biological equality with whites was widely denied. His writings insisted on the value of Black folks as human persons as well as contributors to American society, and challenged whites, especially politicians, to recognize their worth.
Given the disabilities under which African Americans lived, should they whole heartedly support their nation when the U.S. declared war and entered the carnage of World War I?
As Chad L. Williams finds in The Wounded World, DuBois answered with a resounding “Yes!” And yet he as forced, to his sorrow, to pour out a stream of criticism over the ill-treatment of Black troops in the U.S. Army. (There were no Black Marines and the Navy enrolled Blacks only to serve in the officers’ mess.) With great effort, DuBois and the NAACP convinced the War Department to establish a segregated training center for Black officers. The Army intended to use Black conscripts in labor battalions only; through the effort of activists, the Black 93rd Division was organized, but fear of riling white supremacists was such that their training was spread out across seven camps. When the 93rd arrived in Europe, it was handed over to the French and dressed in French uniforms, France having been the only European power to deploy African troops on the Western Front.
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Even then, white Army American officers resented their Black peers and tried to undermine their respect and dignity. DuBois was tireless in providing the 93rd with coverage in The Crisis, the NAACP’s widely read magazine. When the troops came home, white supremacists were determined to humiliate them, sparking white mob violence and deadly rioting.
The Wounded World’s author, a history professor at Brandeis, writes a moving account of one of the last century’s most important public intellectuals, not only for African Americans but also for a world that remains divided by what DuBois called “the color line.” DuBois was an analytical writer who composed in moving prose, a delight to read as well as thought provoking for his challenges to racism. He wasn’t always correct in his judgments, as Williams concedes, but his vision of a more just society—as well as individual excellence—remains inspiring.
