W. E. B. Du Bois & African American Contributions to World War I

Over 350,000 African American men joined the United States military during World War I, serving valiantly despite discrimination and slander. Historian and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois had hoped that their patriotism would help them gain respect and equality, but after the war it was quickly evident that would not be the case. Du Bois spent the next several decades attempting to tell the full story of Black soldiers in the Great War, but despite a vast archive of materials entrusted to him and his own towering intellect, Du Bois was never able to craft a coherent narrative of their participation.

Joining me in this episode to discuss Du Bois and his relationship with World War I is Dr. Chad L. WIlliams, the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University, and the author of The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “All Of No Man's Land Is Ours,” written by James Europe and Noble Sissle, with vocals by Noble Sissle; the song was recorded around March 14, 1919 and is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons. The episode image is “The famous 369th arrive in New York City,” photographed by Paul Thompson on February 26, 1919; the image is in the public domain and is available via the National Archives (National Archives Identifier: 26431290; Local Identifier: 165-WW-127A-12).

Additional Sources:

• “W.E.B. Du Bois,” NAACP.
• "Du Bois, W. E. B.," by Thomas C. Holt, African American National Biography. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.
• "W. E. B. Du Bois in Georgia," by Derrick Alridge, New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Jul 21, 2020.
• “Niagara Movement,” History.com, Originally posted December 2, 2009 and updated February 24, 2021.
• “U.S. Entry into World War I, 1917,” Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State.
• “The African Roots of War,” by W. E. B. Du Bois, The Atlantic, May 1915.
• “Why Frederick Douglass Wanted Black Men to Fight in the Civil War,” by Farrell Evans, History.com, Originally posted February 8, 2021 and updated November 22, 2022.
• “Patriotism Despite Segregation: African-American Participation During World War I,” The Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs.
• “African Americans in the Military during World War I,” National Archives.
• “The 93rd Division During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive,” Pritzker Military Museum & Library.
• “African-American Soldiers in World War I: The 92nd and 93rd Divisions,” EdSiteMent, The National Endowment for the Humanities
• “W. E. B. Du Bois, World War I, and the Question of Failure,” by Chad Williams, Black Perspectives, February 19, 2018.

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