'A LUNATIC OR A TRAITOR': Garvey vs Du Bois

'A LUNATIC OR A TRAITOR':
Du Bois vs. Garvey

The Suppression of the
African Slave-Trade

by: Todd Steven Burroughs

"In Black American history," writes scholar Theodore G. Vincent, "there are two personalized feuds which stand out beyond all others: W.E.B Du Bois vs. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey."

Both these feuds were carried out largely in the printed page.

For the Du Bois-Washington dispute, the publications were The Crisis magazine, the organ for the NAACP, and The New York Age newspaper, respectively. In that battle, it was Du Bois the integrationist vs. Washington the accomodationist.

In the Du Bois-Garvey dispute, the publications were, respectively, The Crisis and The Negro World newspaper, the organ for Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association. That dispute was between Du Bois the integrationist and Garvey the nationalist.

The following are excerpts of some of the chronological barbs Du Bois and Garvey traded in the Black press, using Vincent's work as a guide.

***

"...Garvey is a sincere, hard-working idealist; he is also a stubborn, domineering leader of the mass; he has worthy industrial and commercial schemes but is an inexperienced businessman. His dreams of Negro industry, commerce and the ultimate freedom of Africa are feasible; but his methods are bombastic, wasteful, illogical and ineffective and almost illegal..."

                    -- Du Bois, The Crisis, January 1921

"As we study the personality of Du Bois, we find that he only appreciates one type of men, and that is the cultured, refined type which lingers around universities and attends pink tea affairs. The men of dynamic force of the Negro race, the men with ability to sway and move the masses, Dr. Du Bois cannot appraise their face value, and that is why the author of 'The Souls of Black Folk,' while the idol of the drawing room aristocrats, could not thus far become the popular leader of the masses of his own race."

                    -- Garvey, The Negro World, Jan. 1, 1921

"It is no wonder that Du Bois seeks the company of white people, because he hates Black as being ugly...Yet this professor, who sees ugliness in being Black, essays to be a leader of the Negro people and has been trying for over fourteen years to deceive them in connection with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Now what does he mean by advancing Colored people if he hates Black so much? In what direction must we expect his advancement? We can conclude in no other way that it is in the direction of losing our Black identity and becoming, as nearly as possible, the lowest Whites by assimilation and miscegenation.'

                   -- Garvey, The Negro World, Feb. 13, 1923

"Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor..... The American Negroes have endured this wretch too all too long with fine restraint and every effort at cooperation and understanding. But the end has come. Every man who apologizes for or defends Marcus Garvey from this day forth writes himself down as unworthy of countenance of decent Americans. As for Garvey himself, this open ally of the Ku Klux Klan should be locked up or sent home."

                    -- Du Bois, The Crisis, May, 1924

***

Garvey, a Jamaican, was indeed "sent home"--in 1927 by the United States government, after serving two years in prison for fraud charges. Many historians say the NAACP and Du Bois gave implicit support to the government's case against Garvey.

In a February 1928 editorial, The Crisis editor gave his (historically revised?) version of the conflict: "We have today, no enmity against Marcus Garvey. He has a great and worthy dream. We wish him well. He is free; he has a following; he still has a chance to carry on his work in his own home and among his own people and to accomplish some of his ideals. Let him do it. We will be the first to applaud any success that he may have."

posted: 7/24/05

Source: BlackPressUSA.com

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