Honoring W.E.B. Du Bois 2012

The Board of Trustees at the University of Pennsylvania appointed Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois Honorary Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies on February 17th 2012. The day included three intellectual panels, art installation, musical tribute, and a poetic tribute. This short video captures the day's activities.

With: Tukufu Zuberi, Lawrence Bobo, Camille Charles, Vivian Gadsden, Lewis Gordon, Stephanie Evans, Aldon Morris, Mary Pattillo, Reiland Rabaka, Gwendolyn Du Bois Shaw, Kenneth Shropshire, Quincy Stewart, Robert Vitalis, Howard Winant.

What If Du Bois had Twitter? Trailer for Black Thought 2.0 Conference

Black Thought 2.0: New Media and the Future of Black Studies

April 6-7, 2012

Duke University

The John Hope Franklin Center

Black Thought 2.0 will focus on the roles of digital technology and social media in furthering the mission of Black Studies. The conference will specifically explore how scholars are using technologies to further their research, do collaborative forms of scholarship and activism, and to reach broader audiences.

*All panels will be streamed and tweeted live

Friday April 6, 2012

Reception—5:30pm

John Hope Franklin Center Gallery Space

Keynote Address—7:00 pm

Black Futures: Doing Black Studies in a Connected World

S. Craig Watkins (University of Texas at Austin, author The Young & the Digital)

Introduced by Wahneema Lubiano (Associate Chair of African & African American Studies, Duke University)

  

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Panel #1 9-10:15 am

The Chocolate Supa Highway: Precursors to Black Social Media

Abdul Alkalimat  (University of Illinois)

Michelle Ferrier (Elon University)

Lynne d Johnson (Director of Strategy & Engagement at Whisprgroup)

Lee D. Baker (Moderator, Duke University)

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Panel #2 10:30-11:45

On the Grid: Teaching and Researching in the Digital Age 

Allison Clark (Founder AMedia1/HASTAC)

Kim Pearson (College of New Jersey)

Simone Browne (University of Texas at Austin)

Howard Rambsy II (Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville)

Thomas F. DeFrantz (Moderator, Duke University)

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Noon-1:15 | Working Lunch—Social Media Demonstration

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Panel #3 1:30-2:45 pm

From Jena Louisiana to Tahrir Square: Activism in the Age of Social Media

Jasiri X (Pittsburg based artist & activist)

Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Broken Beautiful Press/Mobile Homecoming Project)

Moya Bailey (Emory University/Crunk Feminist Collective)

Kimberly Ellis aka Dr. Goddess (artist, activist, historian)

Salamishah Tillett (University of Pennsylvania)

Treva Lindsey (Moderator, University of Missouri)

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Panel #4 3:00-4:30

The Twitterati and Twitter-gentsia: Social Media and Public Intellectuals

Marc Lamont Hill (Columbia University/Our World with Black Enterprise)

Jay Smooth (Editor of Ill Doctrine)

Blair LM Kelley (North Carolina State University)

Latoya Peterson (Editor of Racialicious)

Imani Perry (Princeton University)

Mark Anthony Neal (Moderator, Duke University)

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The Long View—W.E.B. DuBois, A Forgotten Legacy

The Long View—W.E.B. DuBois, A Forgotten Legacy

by Walter Greason | special to NewBlackMan

W.E.B. DuBois built the world you live in today.  Brick by brick, concept by concept, he tore down a world dedicated to colonialism, segregation, and exploitation.  Who was he?  Sadly, too many people will ask this question with flawless sincerity.  The United States Congress essentially erased him from the public record because he stood for peace in an age of multiple wars.  DuBois's academic and intellectual accomplishments would fill this entire newspaper for years, if they received the coverage he earned.  In brief, his career began before the Presidency of William McKinley and ended just before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  While the world celebrated Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford, DuBois refined Frederick Douglass' concept of universal human equality and developed the global political agenda of democratic self-rule. 

DuBois’s most recognized insight was the exploration of 'double consciousness' – the  idea that within a single person there was a self-image and an awareness of how other people saw you.  The distinction between the internal and external perceptions of a person could utterly destroy an individual, especially when the difference between the two visions involved the idea of race.

However, another keen insight came from his work, "The Freedom to Learn," in 1949.  DuBois asserted that the right to learn was the most difficult achievement humanity had won in 5000 years of struggle.  Consider that.  More than the Jeffersonian rights to life, liberty, and property, the right to learn was most valuable.  In the long process of human beings exploring different form of civilization as we moved from religion to enlightenment to science in pursuit of greater freedom, learning was never a right. 

For DuBois, this achievement was a product of the American commitment to public education in the late nineteenth century.  Education was no longer the exclusive domain of the wealthy or the devout.  Everyone could learn.  The content of the education could certainly be debated.  Which lessons were most appropriate for which people?  Still, the fundamental claim that everyone had a right to more information built the conceptual foundation for the schools, libraries, and colleges across the world.  Indeed, it is the premise behind the widespread information sharing we do with websites like Wikipedia, Youtube, and Google.

Who carries the torch today for increased freedom, education, and a better world tomorrow?  Salamishah Tillet and Aishah Simmons have led the way in giving greater voices to women around the world in their work No! The Rape Documentary and its related projects.  Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Mark Anthony Neal, Marc Lamont Hill, Dawn Elissa-Fisher, and Marcia Dawkins have all established the ways hip hop music transforms societies towards democracy.  Mary Sies, Thomas Sugrue, Robin Bachin, John McCarthy, and Julian Chambliss have applied these lessons to understanding architecture, environmentalism, and metropolitan growth for more than twenty years.  We are all inheritors of DuBois' unparalleled intellectual legacy. 

From his work on The Philadelphia Negroto The Souls of Black Folk to The Crisis Magazine to Black Reconstruction (of Democracy) in America, DuBois was the voice that invented an America and a world that stood for justice and equality in ways inconceivable when his career began.  If we want the best world in the twenty-first century, we must teach these lessons and engage this work in ways that have been too rare over the last forty years.  DuBois is the touchstone for establishing the best human principles for the future.  There are literally thousands of interpreters of his work throughout secondary and higher education.  When all Americans rediscover and embrace these ideas, we will have taken another step towards achieving the beloved community.

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Walter Greason is Associate Professor of History at Ursinus College. He is the author of The Path to Freedom: Black Families in New Jersey, The History Press, 2010.

A History of Black Folk on Twitter: Mark Anthony Neal @ TEDxDuke

From 'Go Down Moses' to the death of Manning Marable, what is the relationship between Black folk and social media?

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