The Propaganda of History

#6, October 1, 2003

Traversing Clio (3)

The Propaganda of History

W.E.B. Du Bois' Black Reconstruction in America was published in 1935. It was a book that was largely ignored at least until the 1960s. Those who weren't unwilling to accept that an African American might have important things to say about the history of Reconstruction in the United States, found the author’s adoption of Marxist terminology off-putting. But Du Bois’s text certainly withstood the test of time. Eric Foner, for example, explicitly used it as a theoretical starting point in his writings on Reconstruction. Like Du Bois, Foner accepted the radical nature of this period, and he retained the earlier scholar's desire to account for the actions of African Americans – not merely recounting the deeds of major political figures. But where Du Bois still remains preeminent perhaps is in his understanding of the fact that Reconstruction was part of a larger story. And this was where Marxism became an important aspect of his analysis, for it pushed Du Bois beyond his concern merely for issues of race in the United States, towards a recognition of the class basis and commonalities of all world conflicts across the color line. This poem, then, is founded on (with not much deviation from) the final section from the chapter entitled “The Propaganda of History,” with which Du Bois closes Black Reconstruction. It clearly highlights this sense of the transnational dimension to and connection with American conflicts and their interpretation in the American academy.

The Propaganda of History

The truer, deeper facts are read with a great despair;

it is at once so simple and so human

– and yet so futile.

There is no villain, no idiot, no saint;

there are just men:

men who crave ease and power,

men who know want and hunger,

men who have crawled.

They all dream and strive with ecstasy of fear

and strain of effort, balked of hope and hate.

Yet the richer world is wide enough for all,

it wants us all and needs us too.

So slight a gesture – a word –

might set the strife in order

– not with full content

– but with the dawning of fulfillment.

Instead roars the crash of hell;

and after its whirlwind a teacher sits in academic halls,

learned in the tradition of its elms and elders;

he looks into the upturned face of youth

and in him youth sees the gowned shape of wisdom

and hears the voice of God.

Cynically he sneers at “chinks” and “niggers.”

Immediately in Africa

a black back runs with the blood of the lash;

in India, a brown girl is raped;

in China, a coolie starves;

in Alabama, seven darkies are more than lynched;

while, in London,

the white limbs of a prostitute are hung with jewels and silk.

Flames of jealous murder sweep the earth,

while the brains of little children smear the hills.

Welcome to “History 12.”