i might as well look for so i go to the library, the appropriately named w.e.b. dubois library. i go to the special collections department and ask the librarian i would like to see these dubois one on one materials. i think it might be a folder, maybe a box, if i'm lucky. i sit down, wait at the table. the librarian returns with six microfilm reels. wow. so now i'm really. what could this possibly. so some of you may remember what a microfilm machine like you had a roll load the film and crank the so i put the first reel in and there is a manuscript by w e.b. dubois on the black in world war one that i knew nothing about the manuscript. i would continue to learn more about 800 pages long. in addition to the actual manuscript, all of dubois's research materials and the correspondence related to this project. he gave his book an incredibly evocative title, the black man and the wounded world. so just imagine i am a young bride, had graduate student stumbling an unfinished and unpublished manuscript by the great w.e.b. dubois. i didn't know what to do with myself. was stunned. shoc

you know thomas me sorry i'm monroe trotter in w.e.b. dubois. and monroe trotter wrote the book the guardian. and so famously, they're going to talk about, you know, a lot in the press, booker t washington, but flipper is someone who who criticizes black soldiers. and after he did that a couple of times they stopped his little letters. right. there's like there's only so much conservative, much we read what they're not going to do is how allow him to be a opposed to black soldiers who the he's criticizing will be the soldiers in houston who in the houston uprising, which ended up being the largest court martial in u.s. history and, them killing white police who had been harassing, in fact, you know, whole situation because a white police officer was assaulting a black woman in a black soldier intervenes to protect and he gets attacked. and so flipper comes out and criticizes them. the entire black population, the press is supporting them. them love here. here you. they're disgraceful that was the last letter he wrote that got published. so mean.

you know thomas me sorry i'm monroe trotter in w.e.b. dubois. and monroe trotter wrote the book the guardian. and so famously, they're going to talk about, you know, a lot in the press, booker t washington, but flipper is someone who who criticizes black soldiers. and after he did that a couple of times they stopped his little letters. right. there's like there's only so much conservative, much we read what they're not going to do is how allow him to be a opposed to black soldiers who the he's criticizing will be the soldiers in houston who in the houston uprising, which ended up being the largest court martial in u.s. history and, them killing white police who had been harassing, in fact, you know, whole situation because a white police officer was assaulting a black woman in a black soldier intervenes to protect and he gets attacked. and so flipper comes out and criticizes them. the entire black population, the press is supporting them. them love here. here you. they're disgraceful that was the last letter he wrote that got published. so mean.

w.e.b. dubois was at the the tashkent event. f was sutherland is somebody like sembene, like laguna was going back and forth between congress for cultural and afro-asian writers association events. this is a an abbreviated list. some of the major figures in african literature from the fifties, sixties and seventies that went back and forth and had very s levels of involvement and engagement with both united states affiliated cultural apparatus and its soviet counterpart, lotus magazine and the afro-asian writers association. most of these writers published in at least one congress for cultural publication. well, as some of those lotus magazine issues that i talked about a few moments, so as was churning through information, one of the most difficult things for me to do, writing this book was to account for this, but it was also one of the most liberating parts of doing this project, trying to reckon with this archival and i'll call it empirical data that i found as i was my research, my original hypothesis was completely sunk. b

w.e.b. dubois, outset of war, one says we're going to return fighting. right? we're going to close ranks, fight this war abroad. but then we're going to come back and gain equal rights at home. what's different with world war two is the scale that americans have been part of every military conflict united states has ever been involved in going, all the way back to the american revolution in run up to world war two, before america officially joins the war after pearl harbor. it's clear that this is going to be a monumental undertaking and people understand a couple of things. and that's what i mean, jobs both in defense industries, also in the military that having opportunities serve in the military was both a source of patriotism, a source sense of belonging, and citizenship, but also it was payments that you received to pay for your service in the army or navy that black want a chance to be able to to benefit from and receive training in the military that could be used in the civilian world afterwards. so in 1938, 39, 48, there were organized by civil rights a