W. E. B. Du Bois Was the Father of Pan-African Socialism
The author of Black Reconstruction was also one of the pioneers of Pan-African socialism. Working with and influencing figures like George Padmore, C. L. R. James, and Kwame Nkrumah, Du Bois sowed the seeds of global revolt against racism and capitalism.
The black American Communist W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the pioneers of pan-African socialism. (Bettmann via Getty Images)
W. E. B. Du Bois is still the most famous black American Communist in US history, and the godfather of what has been called the black radical tradition. Best remembered for his remarkable work Black Reconstruction in America, he remains a vital reference point for those organizing against the violent forward march of capitalism.
Du Bois viewed every political question as a radical internationalist, querying how capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism had become the triple-headed monster of modernity. One solution he arrived at to all three problems was Pan-African socialism.
Capitalism and the Color Line
Du Bois’s career as a Pan-African socialist began with his chapter on the Haitian Revolution in his 1895 Harvard dissertation on the African slave trade. He later lamented that the dissertation suffered from a lack of education in Marxism — as a student, he wrote, “I was overwhelmed with rebuttals of Marxism before I understood the original doctrine.” Yet the attention he paid to Caribbean slavery and workers’ uprisings marked his first effort to see the African diaspora and capitalist history as a totality.
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