The point, after all, is to change the world.
W.E.B. DuBois pioneered the scientific study of American minority communities. Why does his legacy remain marginalized within sociology?
Under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois, Atlanta became a hub of early American sociology with rigorous empirical studies of black communities. One hundred years later, that history has been pushed to the sidelines.
Du Bois was deeply aware of the capacity of marginalized people to produce new knowledge about oppression and inequality. He is still a beacon for young colored scholars today.
Long before “intersectionality” gave us a language to analyze the interactions of race, class, and gender, W.E.B. Du Bois examined the particular experience and role of black women in American capitalism.
One of W.E.B. Du Bois’ most powerful ideas was also most discomforting to the establishment: A belief in rigorous scholarship that was also engaged in the project of political transformation. It’s a legacy we ought to reclaim.
Race, the history of sociology, and the marginalized man – lessons from Aldon Morris’ book “The Scholar Denied”