WEB Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America (BRA) (1935) has many intellectual legacies for how African American History came to be crafted and how the intersections of race and class came to be understood in American radical political thought.

This edited volume of essays seeks to explore the following questions:  

How did “the psychological wage” found among the white worker in BRA shape notions of "white privilege" and critical whiteness studies? What type of solidarity from white workers was Du Bois looking for? How has this idea been transferred across time and space to shape political thought?

1. Compare the political economy of BRA and CLR James’ THE BLACK JACOBINS. How are Black workers understood in both works? How does the state approach wage labor in both works?

2. How did BRA deconstruct white supremacy in “The Propaganda of History?” What was the approach by representative historians to Reconstruction before Du Bois?

3. How do contemporary classic liberal or conservative libertarian historians approach Reconstruction? How is this proxy for a critique of civil rights, welfare, and affirmative action?

4. Compare BRA with James Allen’s THE BATTLE FOR DEMOCRACY How was BRA’s approach to public education during Reconstruction affected by the era of FDR’s New Deal?

5. How does the idea of “the general strike” function in BRA? How can we place this in conversation with slave revolts, the Underground Railroad, and the popular committees which responded to Sherman’s Field Order 15?

6. Does Du Bois place the freedmen’s self-organization and democratic instincts in conversation with Ancient Greece and the French and Russian Revolutions?

7. If Du Bois's BRA has a direct democratic legacy, is this in conflict with his proto-defense of the welfare state?

Does BRA capture the political thought of obscure and ordinary Black people? Does this have something to do with the meaning of "the sorrow songs?"

8. If BRA is “a history from below,” how do we critically account for WEB DuBois’s constant focus on what the presidents were doing or not doing?

9. How was the methodology of BRA an improvement over the methodology of WEB Du Bois’ SUPPRESSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE (1896)?

10 How has BRA been transcended by subsequent scholarship (ex. Vincent Harding, Steven Hahn)?

How does BRA, the historical narrative as political thought, clash with WEB Du Bois’s actual social movement politics as represented by the idea od “the Talented Tenth”?

11 How did study groups on BRA shape the Post-Civil Rights era activism of 1965-1975?

Please submit abstracts of 300-500 words are due by October 1st, 2012. Along with your abstract, please forward a CV. Independent scholars and unpublished college students are welcome to submit work as well. Final papers should be 6,000-8,000 words in length and are due March 1st, 2013. For final papers, Chicago Manual of Style, is preferred, with end-notes (not footnotes).

Please submit all abstracts to our editorial staff at the email address listed.

Many thanks.

On Our Own Authority!
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