Speaker: Gerald Horne

Title: "Du Bois and the Dire Need for a Reconstruction of U.S. Historiography"

Registration link for the talk.

Abstract: In "Black Reconstruction" Du Bois sharply revised the historiographic understanding of the pivotal post-1865 era in the U.S. He also critiqued the now vaunted U.S. Constitution. However, he did not go far enough--for example, in confronting the Indigenous Question nor in critiquing the post-1865 Negro leadership, including the now sainted Frederick Douglass, and their weaknesses re: the aforementioned, not to mention their not contributing more directly to what Haiti had launched post-1804: a dedicated global campaign against the scourge of slavery, the absence of which only laid a foundation for the efflorescence of U.S. imperialism, imperiling democratic advance generally--not least today as neo-fascism beckons ominously. Completing this unfinished business is a top priority today, which presupposes a sharper revision of U.S. historiography, including 1776 and--sociologically--more attention to the Class Question, e.g. the unwillingness of the class of unpaid workers to engage in Class Collaboration--a dominant trend among many others--and, as well the "Militarized Identity Politics" involved in the construction of "whiteness."