Known facts are not always representative of unknown truths. Does that mean they should be ignored? Not at all. It does, however, indicate a need to exercise caution when speaking or writing as if only a single interpretation of documented events in an individual’s life is possible. Take the example of a Wikipedia article on “Common Misconceptions,” in which the author was kind and erudite enough to offer the following: “African American intellectual and activist W.E.B. Du Bois did not renounce his U.S. citizenship while living in Ghana shortly before his death, *[169] as is often claimed. *[170]*[171]*[172] In early 1963, due to his membership in the Communist Party and support for the Soviet Union, the U.S. State Department did not renew his passport while he was already in Ghana overseeing the creation of the Encyclopedia Africana. After leaving the embassy, he stated his intention to renounce his citizenship in protest. But while he took Ghanaian citizenship, he never went through the process of renouncing his American citizenship, *[173] and may not even have intended to.*[169]” A Kind of LynchingThe word renounce, it may be argued, need not include the stipulation of a formal declaration. Nonetheless, it is true that as far as we know the ailing 95-year-old Du Bois did not get around to going through a formal process of declaring and documenting the renunciation of his U.S. citizenship. What no one, including the author of this blog, can ever know is how many times he likely renounced it in his heart while waiting an entire lifetime to see if African Americans would ever be accepted by White Americans as equal citizens with equal rights in his homeland. He died knowing it had never happened because at the time of his death, even though President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 9808 had been signed in 1946 to outlaw lynching, Whites who were so-inclined could still get away with hanging, burning, shooting, or bombing African Americans at will and not suffer any legal repercussions for it. His own status as a renowned educator and political advocate had largely insulated Dr. Du Bois from such direct physical threats but their extended implications were far from lost on him. Moreover, some might contend that the U.S. Government’s refusal to renew his passport and block access to the medical treatment he needed so desperately was a kind of lynching. |
AberjhaniWinner of Choice Academic Title Award, Best History Book Award, and Notable Book of the Year Award for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Remaisssance. Archives
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