In 1995, I read The Souls of Black Folk from cover to cover for the first time in about twenty years. The farther I got into the book the stranger it seemed, and the more exhilarating it became even though I had read it before. Moreover, I had been reading about the book ever since I first read it. Yet it no longer seemed like the book I had previously read, nor did it seem to be quite the same book I had been reading about all those years since. Ultimately, I did what any curious person would have done—I began rereading all the things I had read about the book, and then some. This process was made infinitely easier because of the superb research skills of two (then) graduate students, Tiwanna Simpson and Stephen G. Hall, who spent a couple or more weeks conducting literature searches for me—in the library and without the assistance of Google(!). Their accomplishment gave me more than a good start on what ultimately became this book and was worth far more than the hourly rate they were paid. Even my deeply felt gratitude is not enough.
The more I read and reread, the more I talked about Du Bois’ masterwork. I might never have written a word about it had it not been for Julius Scott. For the next two or three years, almost every time we talked I ended up rambling on and on about The Souls of Black Folk. At some point Julius suggested that I write something. I was in the middle of another project, with five or six years’ worth of research already behind it, but one day I took Julius’s advice, and after two or three (or four or five) hours one weekend, I had written two paragraphs that became the opening of the one essay I intended to write about Souls. Thank you, Julius!
Several years later, while a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, I completed a reasonable draft of that essay. I am grateful to Tom Holt, Julie Saville, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Joe Reidy, who read and commented on it. Thanks also to Doug McAdam, who then directed the center, and Waldo Martin, Fred Cooper, and Sterling Stuckey, all fellows that year, for their comments on that draft. I met Nahum Chandler that year, and he immediately encouraged and promoted my efforts. Nahum shared his published and unpublished work and continued to support my efforts over the years that followed. Adolph Reed read that first essay in the form of an article manuscript for a journal and encouraged its publication. Later having the opportunity to talk with Reed, along with Kenneth Warren, about this work and others, and their subsequent critiques of new chapter drafts, helped me to improve my initial efforts and to extend them to what was slowly becoming a book. It might have remained “a becoming” had I not had the opportunity to meet David L. Lewis and to comment on his Distinguished Keynote Address at one of the events in the 2005–6 Buffalo State College yearlong centennial celebration of the meeting of the Niagara Conference. Although I had previously read both of Lewis’s volumes on Du Bois’ life, Lewis’s paper pushed me to read more classical philosophy. His response to my comments and his subsequent comments on what had become three drafted chapters helped me immensely. My thanks also go to Pat Sullivan and Shelia Martin for reading a draft of the essay that began as that commentary, and to Shelia, Wanda Davis, and Felix Armfield for their roles in my receiving the invitation to participate in this important celebration.
Subsequent presentations at the American Historical Association meetings (2003) and the meetings of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (2009) yielded very helpful comments from Ernest Allen, Jim Grossman, Earl Lewis, and the audience members at both sessions. In particular, a question from Robert Harris at the AHA session forced me to relate my conclusions to Du Bois’ international concerns in Souls. My project was still in its early stages, and this single question was central to my rethinking everything. It led to my first efforts to tackle Hegel and, ultimately, to the one article’s becoming this book. I will always be grateful for the question. Audience members at the 1999 and 2005 meetings of the Collegium for African American Research also provided important comments and raised useful questions. A presentation at the 2010 “History—Ancient to Modern” conference of the Athens Institute for Education and Research brought me face-to-face with another body of insightful scholars of the histories of states, societies, art, philosophy, and religion. Among these scholars, I especially thank Andrea Eis, a scholar of classical art, whose example is inspiring, and Christopher Phelps, then an OSU colleague on a different campus, who pointedly asked me to reconcile my own conclusions about Du Bois’ work with his years of study with William James. I might not yet have a complete response, but the question alone (and much subsequent pondering of it) further convinced me of Du Bois’ intellectual independence and yielded more insights that made their way into this book.
Many current and former colleagues at OSU have had a hand in the production of this book. Kenneth Hamilton read one of the first complete drafts of the book and provided me chapter-by-chapter (really, line-by-line) comments. I am surprised he still speaks to me after enduring this burden. Alamin Mazrui read the first chapters of this project and actively supported and encouraged my efforts. Greg Anderson directed me to important literature on Pythagoras and Pythagoreans. Kwaku Korang provided copies of his own related work, and Stephen Kern and Cynthia Brokaw provided copies of other related scholarship. Carole Fink not only provided copies of scholarship on Du Bois that turned up during her own unrelated research, but she read an early draft of the whole manuscript and always asked good, hard questions about it. She has contributed much to this volume. Les Benedict gave me more than enough to think about regarding constitutional history. His equally impressive understanding of Hegel and his detailed comments on parts of my manuscript began to ease the chronic headache that reading Hegel (over and over) had bequeathed me. Les also read those first two paragraphs, years earlier, and completely transformed one of them by changing one word. Bill Childs graciously read and commented on the entire manuscript and never stopped supporting it. Eugene O’Connor, because of his training in classical philosophy and literature, totally intimidated me. I am grateful that his comments, along with those of Kenneth Goings, on rough, early chapter drafts helped me to refine some of my discussions. Penny Russell patiently waited for years to read the entire manuscript and generously provided helpful comments. Jacqueline Roy-ster also read one of those early drafts of the whole manuscript and engaged in long, helpful conversations with me about it. I am equally grateful to Ted McDaniel for reading and commenting on the manuscript and for assisting me in my education on various aspects of music history and theory. I am also thankful to Ted for introducing me to Gabriel Miller, whom I must thank for helping me with the piano work, for answering all my questions about the music, and for anticipating other, usually more important, questions. Pat Pannell Bullock and Kelly Eager completed some of the tedious work of proofreading and documentation checking. Long and regular conversations with Stephen Hall, on his work and mine, gradually (and fortunately) moved me toward thinking about this whole project in the context of intellectual history. I am especially grateful for those conversations and others about whatever we were reading at the time or had just read. Stephen always asked the question or made the observation that made me think about books and ideas in new and useful ways.
John C. Burnham read the first complete draft of this manuscript around 2008. Having served as my Ph.D. adviser, this historian of science and medicine probably never imagined that he would still be reading my draft work after these many years. One of the benefits of his also being a friend is that he has never been too busy (and he might be busier than anybody I know) to talk with me about it or to listen to me talk about things I was still trying to understand. And yes, John, I AM WORKING ON THE GRANDMOTHERS EVEN AS I AM WRITING THESE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. I thank Marjorie Burnham for enduring all those Sunday brunches that were almost always accompanied (probably dominated) by my (often repetitive) thinking out loud about this book, those (temporarily) neglected grandmothers, and stuff, in general. I am equally grateful for her insights on this work and everything else.
The support of other friends has been critical throughout this process. Robin Hailstorks has been an ace since graduate school. Carlton Wilson, also a long-timer, read and commented on an early, really rough draft of this book and pushed me to learn more about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European political thought. Carlton, even if you don’t see the evidence of it in this book, I really did read everything you suggested. Thank you for everything. Many thanks, also, to Lynda Morgan for reading this manuscript, for helping me to think about it, and for always lending a good ear. I am grateful for the friendship of Ross Bagby, Deborah Post, Chris Burton, Lynn Gale, Randy Roth, Jim Bartholomew, Colin Palmer, Susan Hartmann, Paulette Pierce, Jim Upton, and Lydia Lindsey, all of whom contributed to the completion of this book. Another former student, Keith Griffler, read, reread, commented on, and discussed several chapters of this study with me. Thank you, Keith. And thank you, Kenneth Andrien, for being a great friend and Julius Gordon for everything.
In the category of friends and family, Dianne, Aaronia, and Kevin, thank you. I love you. Jennie, Aaron, Vera L., Richard, and Vera A., we miss you.
I have incurred a huge debt to all the Du Bois scholars, living and dead, whose works have provided me an education that could never have come in school. I remain humbled by their work. I am equally indebted and grateful to the Hegel scholars, whose works helped me through the most difficult text I have ever read, and reread, and reread. I only wish I could have done more in both areas.
I finished the first reasonable draft of the first essay for this book (which now comprises parts of the first and second chapters) as a 2002–3 fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and I finished the first complete draft of the final chapter as a 2008–9 Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center. In both cases, I was working primarily on something else. I am grateful for both fellowships, for the time and space they provided, and for the opportunities they presented for meeting, listening to, and talking with so many fine scholars. As remote as some of their areas of study appeared to be from my own, all the talks I attended at the Stanford Humanities Center contributed directly to this project. In addition to the people I have already thanked from CASBS, I owe a special debt to István Bodnár, the first philosopher in whose care I entrusted that first, tentative essay draft. I am grateful to him for taking it seriously, providing helpful comments, and remaining interested in this project over many years. I am thankful to OSU for supplementing both fellowships and for a publication subvention grant. I am grateful to the University of North Carolina Press for taking a chance on this book and for all the work and patience of the staff. I will forever be grateful to Lucius Outlaw and to UNC Press readers Robin Kelley and Wilson Moses for their thoughtful comments and for the ways they helped make this book better.