maurice jackson teaches a class on the philosophy of w.e.b. dubois. a civil rights activist in he described his early life, role as an educator, and relationship with other activists at the time. the class is about an hour. maurice jackson: today we discussed the works of web dubois. we just entered african-american history month, and carter woods said we established this for three reasons. one was because of frederick douglass' birthday, the birthday of abraham lincoln, established the emancipation proclamation, and also the birthday of web dubois, april 23 -- february 23 in massachusetts. my wife was pregnant with our

second child, and she went into labor february 22. so i said dear, if you have this child tonight, he will be born on toward washington's birthday. if you hold out a couple of hours, you will have dubois' baby. you can imagine what she would say to your husband 10 or 15 years down the road. she called me, but he was born on february 23, so you have a dubois baby. there is no person exhibit five the struggle -- struggle of freedom -- that exemplifies the struggle of freedom more than web dubois. he became famous for the many rights. let's look at his life and his sayings. his early years, born in great barrington, massachusetts.

he was born there, he is born to a mother and father. his father alfred left the family not long after he was born. his grandfather alexander was of haitian background, he spent some time in domingo and ran a story and great barrington. his grandfather had some going back to hasty -- haiti, we just don't know. some mixture, german somewhere along the line. when i asked him what was his makeup, you said, i am a little german, little french, little haitian, a little dutch, but thank god no anglo-saxon. what do we mean by that? anglo-saxon were the original people that traded in slaves. we can see a bit of his early life, the early life and the early years of dubois then. at age of 12, he published a work in england. this is the book people would take a door to door.

as a young boy, he read this i were six times. it was like in a cyclopean chronicle. he went from page to page reading the history of the world, history of the ancient world. and it stayed with them. and great barrington, there were no other blacks. maybe one or two other families. so very early he became attuned to the study of books. he did not want to let his mother down. she wanted to educate herself -- her son. in a school with many white people, he excelled more than others. and you know how it is with children. people accept each other. races and cultures that really matter that much. it is how much you can play the game, how you can do the jump rope, how you can bring your mother cookies to school. so he never had a racist incident until he goes to school , and kids are passing out cards , like greeting cards.

and this one girl would not exchange, except his card. then he saw a racist tension. if you are african-american or spanish or some other ethnic minority who has come into this press, you most likely remember you had a racist incident. i remember the first time i did. my father and i were working, someone was driving in a pickup truck, and he said i smell a guard. i said, what kind of guard? people always going away from you, never coming toward you. so he early recognize that. it is good to recognize this early. so he excelled in school. his mother told the story that he wanted german textbooks. he did not have the money to buy them. he would work in the morning in stores and things like that.

his friend lucas, he was somewhat mentally challenged would be the word, best word. he had difficulty in learning, but they became best friends. his friend's mother bought him a set of books. in this case, she did it for her son. he learned early on in german, and one minute -- people in town saw how talented this young man was, so they wanted to make sure he went to college. he was from great barrington, so he would want to go to harvey -- harvard. they took up money. people took up stories raise money for him to go, but not to harvard. they could accept him as a smart black man, but not to a premier institution. so he went to fisk university in

tennessee, and he excelled. he had never been down south in his early years. it became very important to him. he left and went to fisk university. this is livingston hall, the main hall on the campus. even when i went there, many, many years later, a young man can walk out, they can never go into the dome because it was all girls. fisk became famous for the jubilee singers. the group opened in 1966. and as we talked before, the office, the modern version of the negro spiritual. and the choir traveled across the world and saying many songs. -- sang many songs. we will come back to that in a moment. but at fisk, he learned something he had not seen before. he went down south, and even to other parts of tennessee, and

there for the first time he saw poverty poverty of his people. blacks they could not read and write. people walking around barefoot. he's a people that had to wash their clothes outside with the boards. he's of your experience of people, none who have ever gone to school, and as we told black folks to read about a young folk named joe and others. in fisk, he excelled. he finished in a four-year course in two years. then he applied to harvard and was accepted, where he was encouraged in rigorous study there. he study with the great philosophers of american history. one of the great historians of america, when the first great ones of the 19th century in harvard, he taught dubois the importance of learning facts and

writing well. george, william james, he wrote his -- he won a prize in his senior year. he wrote it about jefferson davis and the rise of slavery. from there, he applied to graduate school, but first he wanted to go to germany. he wanted to go to germany for several reasons are you first because of another school, one could learn empirical knowledge. has anybody seen the movie "kodiak"? he said, show me a fax, and i will interpret it myself. the quakers says, i don't need the word of the preachers. i will find out for myself. dubois was very much this. he wanted to be a doctor in germany. at homburg university.

but his german peers resented him because he was smarter than them. they protested, and he did not get a doctorate there. at the same time when he was in germany, he had different feelings. he saw the racism of his fellow students, but in germany, he sees something different. he does not experience that racism. he talked about the dualism of things. in germany, of course, it was economics at homburg university. and trading economy is the betterment of ideas based on the attitude of people. and karl marx later on in this period of economic structures to understand the modern world using theories and the dialectical. we've talked about before. in the context of race and pan

german is him, he saw the race as a positive force in history. being black was not a negative. he wanted to explore that. he came back to look at that. after he left germany, he went back to harvard and completed his doctoral studies. in his last years as he is writing, he takes a job at another university. he could not get a job in other places. they taught classics and modern language. i mean greek and latin. he also taught silence -- science and biology. he was a young man in town, and of course he was wearing the top hat as a german wood, three-piece suits all the time, spats on his shoes. he is invited to dinner's almost every night, and he is a young man. so he is thinking maybe about marriage or his future. so he sees these young ladies, everyone inviting him to dinner, so he made two lists. on one list was the young women

who could speak french, whatever, could cook, serve tea instead of [indiscernible] and on another list, those who had children. so he had one woman on both. this will sound a bit silly, but on the list, this is the woman with the name of [indiscernible] and soon he married her and later had children. in the process of doing this, he finished the doctoral thesis at harvard. this is a classic. what this study did more than any other, everybody developed a list and documentation about the way the slave trade worked in each and every state and where slavery comes from in other regions, the first time it had ever been done.

it shows imperial knowledge and going back to the colonial constitution. -- empirical knowledge. in american history, there are many schools of this. the nasher school only took to preserve america's history. the turner's goal was to reflect that deal of british imperialism , and later on the progressive school which sought to include africans in the equation. so he wrote this book. they came out in the harvard series. it became a classic in its own days, slave trade, 1683 17 -- the slavery in the 1908. america continues to the civil war. at wilberforce how he finishes

dubois. he applies for other jobs. wilberforce will not let him go. but he liked concerts and museums. he applied for jobs, and lo and behold, he got a job in philadelphia. in philadelphia got a job working on a study of the city. what it was to do was to study the place of africans in the african-americans in that city

to look at the economic conditions and get an idea about them. it begin the first empirical social work of its time. it is the spirit of what we call urban sociology. so word i word -- ward by ward, you have heard of in new orleans where the ward, the lower ninth. he went to the eighth ward and spent hours and hours. here is a man a chance to all the greek languages and empirical learning, and he goes door to door should be for people doing it, but they only have one. so he went map to map interviewing people, and it set the stage for what we see now with modern interviews, as you know, when people want to see

the type of people who are going to vote, they do it. now they can say working-class whites are voting for donald trump. african-americans in the south, they can look at the numbers and say many will go for mrs. clinton. they can go for two vermont and other places -- go to vermont and other places. dubois was the first to do this ward by ward. there was a book called "the philadelphia negro." the base great tributes to people before. he educates the blacks in philadelphia. this man became the modern founder of the antislavery movement. but do boy -- dubois found the first school, continuous school for blacks in philadelphia. the african free school. and the other books, slave asian -- suppression of slave trade, revolution was put forth to call for an end for slavery in america. so here the greatest appreciation for that.

-- he had the greatest appreciation for that. next year, he got work in atlanta, georgia. he was in sociology and empirical studies. he taught greek and latin. and he taught under the name burkart. that was his mother's name. that was his mother's name. anybody watch the eddie griffith show? -- andy griffith show? gomer pyle had that name. in this case, it was a northern name. you can see the kind of dress, looks like a young girl's dress. that is the way of the victorian-style. dubois is a rematch of victorian. the child is six -- sick. note atlanta dr. will help him. it had been common up until the late 60's in some places. -- late 1860's in some places.

his son died of disease which could he have easily been cured of. so when the works is written on the passing of the firstborn. in his book the black folks. we will come to that. he noticed other things, other tragedies occur. one of the tragedies i mentioned , he is walking somewhere, and he passes the place, and the klan is on display. he comes apart -- he comes upon a jar. instead of pickles, it is the eyes of a human being. i actually have seen men's body parts put in pickle jars outside of southern klan buildings. it was a token of your oppression, the fear we have taken about. and he sees that. he starts documenting certain

incidences. he was born in 1868. 291 blacks are lynched the year he is in atlanta in the 1900s. you can do the numbers lynched. we are talking about lynching before. he continued scientific research , he gets a post at work to begin a study of the american negro, as you said. he did it with murray, an printer from a prestigious family, who is at the library of

congress. he's on putting together exhibits of the achievements of african-americans. 500 photographs and many pictures of scientific -- has he is at the paris exposition, he wears the clothes he has worn in germany, top hat, three-piece suit, best, -- vest, pocket watch, very much of victorian. as he is there, he uses series to consternation and chastise, which we have spoken about. we have spoken of the cotton states exhibit a few years before, which was a famous saying, cast on your vote where you are, cast down your bucket. put up your hands and operate in two ways in all things economic. they can be as one, but in all things social, they will be the five fingers. we know there is nothing like

separate but equal. but he was not john jennings, and we will speak a bit about his book on the paris exhibit. in 1903, he publishes his magisterial work called the negro bible. he becomes the permanent desk preeminent voice. he writes for dial magazine and atlanta monthly. any look in the book -- and you look in the book, you see something unique. he sees a negro spirit, and then you will have a problem on the other side, something of dubois in his own words, very much like this. you see the poet on one side. the poet was one that dr. king always read.

this was by james russell lowell , the great poet. the most famous lines are wrong doing on the throne, but the scaffold is behind them unknown. keeping watch above his own. and of course, king used to that. devil on the throne. what does that mean? true devil and a scaffold? what is a scaffold, just off your head? if you are an artist, you know what a scaffold is. the framework. it is something you stand on. it is something i used to work on on ships. i would go out in the ocean, and there was a scaffold. it is cheaper to work on an ocean ship. -- a ship out in the ocean. men and women go up on a

scaffold, and you want to paint, they don't do it now, but if they were painting a building and is made of hard plaster, men would go on a scaffold and paint. if you want anyone -- watching would paint the sistine temple, they have to go up and lay on their backs. michelangelo lay on his back for a long time. so what is he saying? true devil and a scaffold represents who? who did the scaffold represent? every working man and woman. the throne represents what? up with your hands. the high and the mighty, the king, the ones whose works you must always solve. but the truth will last forever, and our lives will standalone. these famous words. so you think about the social

black folks, the dual this of people -- dualness of people. it became known as the nigra -- negro bible. it was deeply spiritual, and that played credit with some of the negro spirituals before you. and you can see the names of some of those if you look on the side, on the side there. nobody knows the trouble i have seen, nobody knows the trouble i have seen. anybody know the words. nice song. nobody knows but jesus. it was nobody knows like jesus. there is a difference between like and but jesus. if you said like jesus, that means somebody else does know

the troubles. if you say nobody else but jesus, only jesus knows. if you say like jesus, you are saying other people can join you in the struggle, you have not given up. if you say but jesus, you only look for salvation of freedom in heaven. so steal away, steal away, steal away home. steal away, jesus means what? to have an. but steal away home means to freedom. and swing low sweet chariot, carry me home, swing low sweet chariot. if you get there before i do, cap tell all the children i am coming too. it means if you get to heaven before me, you tell them what?

but if you get freedom, it means i am coming after you. so use this beautiful turns. he wrote about the meaning of the spirituals. he called them sorrow songs. but he called them sorrow songs because they tell of death, suffering, and longing for the true word, mystic wanderings and hidden ways. dubois spoke of sorrow songs. frederick douglass spoke differently. he said often, a people who are oppressed, they sometimes think about i am happiest when i sing, but i can be sad when i sing. you look at the different songs. people that sing the blues, do they sing the blues when they are happy or sad? you usually sing the blues when you are sad. ray charles, i got a woman right across town, she good to me, she give me loving and money too, nothing she wouldn't do. is he sad? he will only do it one time, and that is when his wife catches him. he has the blues.

sometimes you listen to country-western music, which i do on sunday morning because it is good. nothing but the white man's blues, different forms. and so in his book, he takes on booker t. washington. booker t. washington of course is the leader of african-americans at the time. dubois says this. the most recognizable thing is the intensity of mr. booker t. washington. they gave astonishing doubt and hesitation over to his son. then the man began, and his career of booker t. washington. with a single definite program with a little ashamed, summer sentiment on the negro. he concentrated his energy elsewhere. he spoke of industrial education in the south and the submission

of silence of rights. and so he challenged that of booker t. washington, to accept things as they are, go slow, face industrial education. the best way to establish a difference between booker t. washington and w e b was the height of the black movement. the same to me with booker t said we opted to the curtain on his land. -- why stick your nose inside a book? and so, what is he saying there? it is a struggle between

industrial education and advanced education, the right to knowledge. and dubois and booker t took on this. it is interesting about booker t because even though he did not agree with dubois' program, and during the early 1900s when booker t was looking for a job and he wanted to come and become assistant principal of the public schools in washington dc of the negro schools, and booker t. washington undermined the

effort. but when he was at wilberforce years before and applied for a job, come to find out one of his classmates, margaret, who had been at fisk, was booker t. washington second wife. the first wife had died. booker t. washington offered him a job. this was before dubois openly disagree with his policy. -- disagreed with this policy. so there is something called the niagara movement. that was the forerunner of the naacp. they met in niagara falls. they were joined by other great leaders, ida b wells would become the great writer against this in the south. they all wanted to refute the idea of booker t. washington as submissive. it was time for blacks to fight. dubois did three things for education, the right to vote, and the right for participation in the american political system. and so, all of these people came and met in niagara at the canadian border and founded an organization called the niagara movement. you can see the date, 1905 to 1909. in 1909, they had a meeting at huckleberry. that represents what?

it is a place where john brown had his rate. -- raid. they are black and white because the people found very white leather vests, and many -- philanthropists, and many black leaders. they find the magazine, the crisis. and there, do boy is there. -- dubois is there. and they find the naacp on the 100th anniversary of lincoln's birthday. you can see the legal struggles of the grant versus u.s. case. and the grandfather clause was a notion that if your grandfather did not vote, could not vote. so the rights of african-americans all over. the magazine is called the crisis. a magazine there. the crisis magazine starts with many different issues on many

different topics. next year, he publishes his seminal book john brown. he said it was his favorite. he wanted -- wrote it from head. no documents. the naacp found at hobbles. . -- huckleberry. he said i have lived the life of a slave that, he died in slavery. who was the better man? fort douglass -- four douglass, it was john brown. many things have been written about this man, john brown. next year, he goes international , he finds the pan african movement. this is a movement to bring forth africans and people from africa, the caribbean, blacks in latin america and the united

states together for a conference to speak about the oppression of black people. he wrote a plea to the nations of the world signed by all of these leaders. to develop policies, to decolonize the african countries, bringing quality to blacks. stop the lynching, start the terrorism -- stop the terrorism and the colonization of haiti and ghana and other places. by 1919, he cannot call for an african congress. it was called in manchester england. they have the first in africa -- in america in new york. washington would not allow other delegates to be there. we did not want delegates to come in. by 1919, many africans fought in world war i with the french forces, senegalese and other forces.

james fought with european forces, they come back to america, they got great dignity in france. in america, it was the same as before. this is the first gathering of people of color period. during the same time, where one started, dubois for the first time felt this really. he thought for americans to close ranks. what he said is not the time for civic education. it is time to fight against the german forces. and blacks criticized him. they said, put down all our struggles so we can close ranks for an army and the people that do not accept us at home? they created a great debate amongst the soldiers then, and he had his ideas you see in the crisis. we make no ordinary sacrifice,

but we make it widely and willingly with eyes lifted to the hills. this is the great founders of modern jazz. this was out of harlem. the 72nd came out of washington dc. i told you the story they go to france, they are playing with jazz. people look up and say, what is, the french are looking bewildered. when they see that, they applied , and the french have never stopped liking jazz. there ever stopped liking -- they never stopped liking france. and dubois writes in the criticism and changes his tune. he writes later on people come back from the war, we returned

fighting, we returned to fight. we should be victorious. he asks for americans to join together in 1919, which i spoke to you before many soldiers who fought in the war come home, including washington dc, and are lynched. and the rise of another popular figure comes, that is marcus mosiah garvey, born in queen and, jamaica. eloquent speaker, very loquacious. there is a base many times more than dubois and others. he talks about black people as african people who never got the right. he walks around in military uniform. the women dressed in white and creates a great, wonderful organization based on one

notion. that is the back to africa movement assuming people will be able to go there. where in africa? we don't know, we don't know where you are from. oprah winfrey, for years, thought she was the zulu because she wedded to be like mandela. she took a test and found out she was something from west africa. what she finds is she is 100% black. no white blood, no mix and her family. opera one -- oprah winfrey. pure black, a billionaire, you could not be better than that amount. so garvey was really suspicious.

he walked into the naacp office and looked and sees everyone light, right, and almost white. so dubois is criticizing him because he wanted to go back to africa, and they are chastising and criticizing dubois too. we deal with the great differences over political philosophy things like this. a couple years later, dubois tries to perform the black star line, a ship line that will take africans back to some ports in africa. it fails, the ship cannot get out of port. takes a lot of money running a ship with repairs. it would not get out of the water. during this time, dubois is comfortably disillusioned with american society. the more radical answer should be better. he is a contradiction with the naacp. during the scottsboro case when nine african men are pulled off a train accused the right --

raping a white woman, the naacp takes action because they are very of taking on any case. they think they can't win, and they think the people make them feel guilty. they find out the black boys were absolutely not guilty of something they were not involved in. they become disillusioned with the role of the naacp. the move steadily to the left. he was in germany, he started reading some of these works, the bible, of course. particular, for a reason. darwin, thank you. and especially the preface to the condition on political economy. there, he writes about the critique of political economy. he writes the just is -- tyhehe gist is, people cannot judge itself by a particular era. the consciousness determines the man reading. it is not you that determine the external conditions that form who you are. the conditions of life that form your consciousness about things. one does not have to be a working man to understand the plight of working people. but for working people that do understand the plight of little

better. so he had philosophical understanding to look at parts of the world. he looked at the critique to write one of the great books of american policy -- history. but he basically said in this book, he treated the black slaves as workers who were exploited. the book them in 1935, reviewed in almost every publication of the country from atlantic monthly to the black press. but it is panned by the naacp and also panned by the mainstream white press. a couple of years later, the great columbia historian who wrote a revisionist history of black reconstruction, gave great praise to this original work because he was chanting the dunning school and others. it led to the rate of whites by blacks. it led to the south, even though if you look at directors, there were few examples of african-american women -- men

raping. so dubois is going back to his scholarship. he has a role, he is back and forth with the in the late cp -- with the naacp. nothing happens until 1937 with the southern youth conference. jackson is now 98, my godmother. you saw these other names. young people in the south, hester jackson from arlington, louis burling from dion a -- guyanna. all these northerners move down south to fight for democracy.

two people are there. we would deal with rosa parks another time. it becomes very active in the south. here again is some of the pieces of the founders. the southern negro youth conference is the predecessor to organizations like the stealing nonviolent alternating committee. it is based on the principles of revolutionary democracy. dubois continues to fight and be active and plays a major role as finding that your donations in san francisco. he is there because he wants to bring together a fight to discuss the plight of the african nations, the african congresses. he goes in conflict with mrs. roosevelt. she was the grand dame of the american political society.

she would go and work with blacks in the south. she fought for the rights of blacks in washington dc when merit anderson cannot perform at the constitutional whole, mrs. roosevelt is there. when she goes to meetings with blacks in the white -- blacks in the front, she takes a chair and six in the middle. she becomes one of the great leaders and fights for the diane lynching bill. her husband would not sign this because if he signed it, he thought he would lose votes from the south, and he is going to georgia every year because of his condition of his legs. he goes to hot springs. but his wife fights. but they disagree on the pace of dubois, and mrs.

roosevelt disagrees on the pace of this. so in 1947, he has this appeal to the world, mainly an appeal to help the colored people of the world. the next year, he becomes involved in a campaign, i guess would be similar to bernie sanders' campaign. the man is wallace and paul robison. he was the vice president under roosevelt, but he was dumped in favor of harry truman who later becomes president. they have a workers party. in the progressive act and entertainment. some are with mr. sanders, summer with mr. bush. when dubois was in germany, it became in the last century, he sees the movement of the germans , the social democrats. as the progressive party forms,

americans and russians have been allies during the party -- the time, but now they are bitter. the progressive party starts bringing out ideas of corporate control and the right of african americans to vote and women and activists. dubois and others. he also becomes involved in issues around africa. he founded something called the council of african affairs. you will remember transafrica, the struggle against apartheid. this was led by dr. mickelson. he was the provost at iowa university and gave up his position of provost to work for these causes. the fbi found out i did every thing it could for him never to [indiscernible] small risk --

paul robison was did announce for what -- was announced for communism. here you see his wife dorothy and paul robison and dr. dubois are there. as he becomes active on this thing, the cold war is having a tremendous effect. at the same time, there is a movement to end the conversation , colonization of vietnam, cambodia, jamaica and throughout europe and haiti and the west. and the organizers have a peace conference and form the paris conference, the paris peace accords. and then, he was a victor with the famous new york city councilman and had this information center. in the protesting, he was there a close to the white house. he is captivating because he is accused of being a foreign agent. he is no foreign agent. they demand he sign an oath that he is not a foreign agent. he refused and he is handcuffed when he is indicted in union square in new york. he says i am 83 and have been treated as nothing but a -- and

you know the words. but still sharp, proud with his shoes and his home bear. -- holmberg hat. so he plays another role in founding this magazine, one of the greatest of the 20th century. a part of it and others became the principal in organizing this. and you want -- dubois died some time ago. this new magazine, you can see all the pictures people writing of ghana. it should be john claude. james baldwin, you know, and the

great artist. a printmaking artists who is from washington dc. gregory dunbar. jesse jackson. they are all there at howell university. and the husband -- [indiscernible] the publication launches people like alice walker and others.

and harry belafonte and and others. this becomes the key, freedom magazine, in the country. but he is getting old, he is disillusioned, and there is my godmother estelle. he is in their house. everywhere dubois went, there was a circle. the idea was tempora had a black population that needed freedom. he developed this notion with 9 million african-americans at the beginning of the century.

now there are less than 20,000 with freedom. there were 700 lawyers by 2015. there were 7000 black educators, 17,000 preachers. preachers, dubois one said they were the most unique. part intellectual, part preacher, he was all things. the preachers, african-americans , the preacher is unique and spellbound individual. he had this notion of leading the race. he did not. he becomes disillusioned. 1961, he decides to join the common party, write a letter to web dubois. he left early and went to ghana. he went to ghana to complete.

there he is with common cumin -- he founded the convention party in ghana and that the party to independence -- country to independence. they work and help complete this book, the in cycle pdf africa -- encyclopedia africana. i had some of those suits. he is married there. egyptian wife. his 95th birthday. they had the wedding there. and so he goes to complete this encyclopedia africana, to complete information about people of african descent. a few years ago, it was finally reprinted and completed at harvard by a student. and then many people came complete the work. donna gives him citizenship. he announces his own u.s. citizenship. the next year in america, the watch home -- march for washington is being formed. walter griffin was a great man.

he could not tolerate dubois's radicalism, and he asked him prematurely to take a volunteer retirement. dubois did. he is after all trained in europe. he is not a mild man. he did not like any a compass minerals in the south. he announced the death of w ibo -- web dubois. he announces his death. dr. king, dr. king on dubois's birthday, the 100th anniversary, held again by jesse jackson and others in honor of the freedom

march he is fundraising. he says he was in the first place a teacher. he would teach us something about our past, our emancipation. dr. dubois confronted the power structure. he did not apologize are being black. because of this, he was never handicapped. this was the life of to be a be dubois, perhaps the greatest intellectual. -- web dubois, perhaps the greatest intellectual. [applause] i don't know how much time we have left, but let's have a little session of dr. w.e.b. dubois for the next 15 minutes. you will have a sheet i give you with quotes. i found them quite fascinating. if i were to ask you what state this man, when he became what he was, what would you tell me?

>> like, because he was educated, especially at a young age, he was able to light, have a life that was expressed through others his entire life. that was the key to success in both his life and the advancement of black people in america for like, the future generations. maurice jackson: it is not enough just to be black or be oppressed, if you are jewish and oppressed, if you are mongolian and oppressed. it is not enough to feel oppression. you must find a way to fight oppression, so it is not enough to say i have been destroyed. you find ways. knowledge is not just being the

property of white. it is knowledge to advance the race. that is why of course the difference with dubois versus booker t. washington, he said education is the way. and for you not taking advantage of the great stuff you have, you are here for a reason. paying all this money, no matter what it is, to learn and explore. to just leave the campus and go out to the city and learn more about it just for a reason, because each of us has a role in society one way or another. so that was dubois' education. anyone else >> i mean, i am sorry. learn better from what you teach, and he kind of practices what he preaches. maurice jackson: say it again. >> children learn more from what you are then what you teach. it is important to know what he really practices what he preaches.

maurice jackson: i have two children. i was not always a teacher. i was working man was of the time. i drove to the school. him i got them into some of him these, one of these fancy him schools up the street you the cathedral. one of my friends said, maurice, you cannot send your kids there. they may learn, but they would understand about being black. so i laughed at him and said, miles, he will know. he learned about me being. not that black is something all in itself, but you learn from dignity. they learn from the company that comes in. they learn from the affection we give them. the also learn from the demonstrations we go to, the marches. they learn by how one -- how hard their mother works. having to go to school and sacrifice. they learn from all those

things. it is not who you are. as you walk around the campus with your head held high, that sets an example. something else on dubois, what else made him? >> i would add that what made him was not only studying all the time, but also going down and writing this stuff about the negro, when he actually went down and saw the condition peope were living in. because as i remember it, in the backdrop of ferguson, people thought it was separate but equal. clearly, when he went down there, it was not. maurice jackson: it is the aftermath of some years after plessy versus ferguson. it was the birthplace of american democracy, to see the conditions of african americas. -- americans. remember here, dubois is doing the hard, nitty-gritty work, asking questions, surveying. another question we will look at teddy's corner, the struggles of a person in one neighborhood. that the boy went to -- dubois went to. i am trying to find about why so

many african-americans were forced out. the problem is, the city government and the people that keep the statistics have no systematic way of keeping it. it is a most like they did not care. so many african-americans being forced out and cities changed so much. people deprived of justification get in some ways are happy with it, because it creates a neighborhood where there are more familiar faces, but what about people who are been forced out? dubois was the first to look at that. education, economics. people talk about poverty. we have poverty in washington dc

. you have a kid who is 13, or we will say six or seven and your she is behind because they could not go to preschool. why don't they have these opportunities? maybe they are sick, maybe their mother is 20. maybe their mother had a child very young. they did not take the opportunity. and i walk into the corner store where i talked to mow, and no is from ginny. we talk about -- and moe is from guinea. young kids come into the store. they come in to get candy when they should be in preschool, but they are not. so if that person is six, the mother is what, maybe 20, 22. the grandfather is maybe 42, grandfather 62. -- great-grandfather 62. maybe they did not have opportunities. and african-american men, 67% have never been in high school full time.

so dubois is doing this study. we did not learn as much about the study because we are not engaged in the daily work to understand it is not enough to say what social problems are, one must try to solve them. dubois du bois also founded these organizations. what does that say about him? editing with a good speaker and they said that he cannot organize himself out of a bag, but you do not have to did all he had to do -- have to. ali had to do was speak up. and du bois was an organizer. it was not writing the leaflets. to organize today is quite simple. you tweet or something like that and people come out. this was a different david one

had to do -- different day. one had to do leaflets, get them to print, they go out. it is not as easy. you have to get up and go to these other countries. so he has this unique ability to organize in a different way. a true intellect. and of course as you look at his work, du bois is one of the one of the early writers on the commission of african-american women. hero many of the books he preaches. motherraised by a single . list, and thatis her firstaughter

daughter,sun and his a great appreciation for that. one more question, why do you suppose du bois many -- saw the need to leave america? very complex. he has fought, participated, he has written books, goes down south to stop linking -- stop lynchings. but then he feels it is necessary to leave. nobody should feel that way. what is happening during that time, the early 1960's? [indiscernible] >> and on the other side? >> the civil rights movement.

>> yes, the great period of oppression, the mccarthy period. right after woodward to has ended -- ww ii has ended. robison's passport is taken. my grandfather was put into a deal -- jail. you do not see his wife for years. he had to go live somewhere in idaho because the fbi is chasing him and he is accused of being a communist said a great time -- communist. a great time of political oppression. and you have the bay of pigs. and the state race, the thousands of blacks whose passports are taken into many are denied of jobs. are you now, or have you ever been -- for example, many great writers lose jobs in hollywood. and it is a great time of political oppression.

in fact, enough credit is not given to martin luther king, because during his fighting and bringing people like bob dylan and the gregory and everyone, and many leaders across the board, it is the end of the cold war. but he had to leave because of

that. and then du bois goes to africa, but he goes on the mission he always wanted, to write this book. this encyclopedia. so we will end with that. think about what you are going to write your next papers on. and always when he writes my hope they are better -- write, hope they are better than the first one. and i will give you back your papers and we will discuss them. [applause] >> thank you. lesson i am a history of us. i enjoy seeing that america country and how it works. links american artifacts, and what is it was probably something i would really enjoy it. that perspective. let's i am in the span ran. on american history tv, author anthony pitch discusses his book, "the last

lynching: how a gruesome mass murder rocked a small georgia town." he talks about the mass lynching of african-americans in georgia. the fbi investigated and the case went to a grant jury, but nobody was convicted. the national archives posted this hour-long event. >> in "the last lynching" anthony pitch makes use of documents from the national archives, to reconstruct the events that led to the 1946 murders of four african-americans, and the push for anti-lynching laws. steve's praised the book for containing amazing research on the barbarity of the jim crow south and vigilante justice. and a cnn analyst said, it told the haunting story that sadly becomes more relevant all the time. anthony pitch is the author of many nonfiction books. including, kill pop the dead, and the burning of washington.