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The Official Journal
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Sociological Association: A 
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ISSN 1542-6300
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Editor:
George H. Conklin,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Board:
Bob Davis,
 North Carolina
 Agricultural and
 Technical State
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Richard Dixon,
 UNC-Wilmington

Ken Land,
 Duke University

Miles Simpson,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Ron Wimberley,
 N.C. State University

Robert Wortham,
 North Carolina
 Central University
    
®
Volume 3, Number 2
Fall 2005

W.E.B. Du Bois and 
His Social-Scientific Research:
A Review of Online Texts

by
Robert W. Williams
Bennett College


    In his pursuit of social justice, W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) used social science as a critical tool. He reiterated in numerous writings that truth was the touchstone of social-scientific research. From the truth about the "Negro problems" -- a term from his era -- would come the knowledge that could inform the efforts of those in both governmental and private sectors to better the lives of African Americans and to promote the democratic ideals of the U.S.A. Crucial to Du Bois' project was the distribution of his social-scientific findings via many avenues. Despite exclusion in some venues, Du Bois was able to publish many of his works in academic, governmental, and popular arenas. 

    At the risk of an anachronistic presumption I would imagine that the Internet might also serve as a mode of communication for Du Bois if he were writing in the 21th Century. In that spirit, this paper has two main goals. The first seeks to highlight Du Bois' works of social science which are available on the World Wide Web. The second goal of this essay will sketch the social-scientific importance of those Internet-accessible works. The increased availability of such primary source materials is a boon to research on Du Bois as well as his role in the founding of U.S. social science and his place in movements for social justice here and abroad. 

    To fulfill the goals this essay will first briefly outline Du Bois' significance for U.S. social science. Then the essay will examine Du Bois' The Philadelphia Negro and "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia," as well as the Atlanta University Publications, many of which he supervised and edited. For each work or set of works I will indicate the social-scientific significance of the online text(s), and specify the logistics of accessing them.

Du Bois' Place in U.S. Social Science

    Over the last few decades Du Bois has been increasingly acknowledged as a significant -- indeed, as a founding -- member of American sociology (Marable 1986: 28 and 2004; Wortham 2005; E. Wright II 2002a, 2002b, 2005; Zuckerman 2004) as well as of American criminal justice (Gabbidon 1999). To extend his status further, Du Bois might also be considered a founder of the sociology of African American religion. The Negro Church (1903a), an Atlanta University publication edited by Du Bois, has become one of the most frequently cited sources for the study of the place of religion in early African American life and for the influence of spirituality on African Americans. Zuckerman writes that t he work "is the first specifically sociological book-length study of religion published in the United States" (Zuckerman 2002). 

    In brief, the importance of Du Bois' social science lay in its theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions, as Young and Deskins indicated (Young and Deskins 2001). Du Bois' theoretical dimension involved a quest to understand race as a socio-historical process and to explain the racial dimensions of African American life chances. Du Bois' methodological dimensions focused on his use of multiple methodologies: surveys (interviews), archival work, and field observation. The combination of methods was intended to reduce error, a major goal of social science as it developed in the 20th Century. Others have called this Du Bois' "research triangulation" (see Wortham 2005; E. Wright II 2002a and 2005). Du Bois' empirical dimension centered on gathering and interpreting social-scientific data on race relations and African American experiences in particular places. 

    Du Bois' primary goal was to gather data over time via an inductive approach so as generate scientifically derived knowledge (Du Bois 1904a: 54). Du Bois' secondary goal was to use social science for reform -- a tenet of his empirical research which was reinforced by his education in Germany (Barkin 2000; Lemke 2000). Fundamentally, Du Bois wished to wield social science in ways which would challenge what he considered to be the inadequate research of "car-window sociologists," as he was to call them in The Souls of Black Folk (1903b: ch. viii). He also hoped to offer accurate information to counter-balance the misconceptions about, and the negative depictions of, African Americans which abounded in U.S. popular culture and society. 

    In an essay entitled "The Study of the Negro Problems" Du Bois wrote that temporal and spatial variations were crucial for any adequate study of African Americans (Du Bois 1898c). This meant that research projects should: 

(a) interrogate a prevailing notion of African Americans as a more-or-less undifferentiated group across the USA and within particular locales; 

(b) delineate the trends of any potential social progress over time across the USA or in certain locales; and 

(c) analyze the societal-historical-political-economic contexts in which African Americans lived -- contexts which provided both opportunities but also serious constraints on actions.  The three sets of social-scientific inquiry examined below will exemplify those Du Boisian research themes. 

Du Bois' The Philadelphia Negro

    The Progressive Era of America was a time when many talked of governmental regulations in favor of those disadvantaged by industrialization and urbanization. It was also a time when personal moral uplift was suggested as a way to better oneself (Schafer 2001). The Progressive era also could be characterized by an often paternalistic regard for the disadvantaged in society. A typical explanation for the conditions of the disadvantaged was that they possessed "cultural deficits:" the disadvantaged lacked the skills and education to achieve success in society (Schafer 2001). 

    To ascertain the conditions of African Americans in Philadelphia, Du Bois was commissioned to conduct a detailed study of the chiefly African American Seventh Ward (D.L. Lewis 1993: ch. 8: 188-189). The impetus for the study came from the highly influential Susan Wharton of the wealthy Philadelphia Whartons. She convinced the University of Pennsylvania to pursue a study of African Americans in the city. Samuel McCune Lindsay, as head of that school's Sociology department, then commissioned Du Bois to conduct the research. Du Bois left Wilberforce College in Ohio, where he had been teaching, and with his wife moved to the Seventh Ward in 1896. Du Bois himself acknowledged in his autobiography that he believed that there were political motives behind the study, but this did not deter him (Du Bois 1968). 

    Published in 1899, The Philadelphia Negro (TPN) has been one of Du Bois' most highly lauded works. In its scope, TPN provides us with much pioneering research. TPN presents the first in-depth social-scientific analysis of an African American urban community (D.L. Lewis 1993: 190; also see Bay 1998; Brueggemann 1997). For those studying the sociology of religion, Du Bois' survey of Black churches in Philadelphia is the first conducted for cities (Baer 1998; also see Zuckerman 2002). Significantly for later social scientists, Du Bois used a range of methods to examine the conditions and life chances of the people of the Seventh Ward. 

    Du Bois offered his own assessment of the findings in The Philadelphia Negro. In his autobiography, Du Bois wrote about his study: "It revealed the Negro group as a symptom, not a cause; as a striving, palpitating group, and not an inert, sick body of crime; as a long historic development and not a transient occurrence" (Du Bois 1968: ch. xii: 198-199; also in Du Bois 1940b: ch. 4: 596). Among Du Bois's conclusions were: 
(a) the identification of class distinctions among the African Americans in terms of occupation, income, and world view (TPN: sec.22: 100; sec.46: 309-311 [Note: the page numbers refer to the print edition]) -- which thereby challenged a prevailing discourse that Black communities were homogeneous and undifferentiated; and 
(b) Philadelphia as a whole was negatively affected by the diminished prosperity and economic waste which attended the failure to hire, because of racial animus, the best skilled and most educated of the African Americans (TPN: sec.58: 394).  The first conclusion was empirically supported by the data, while the second was more speculative and based indirectly on the skills of African Americans which were not utilized (or scarcely so) in the overall Philadelphia economy. 

    There are at least two significant facets of The Philadelphia Negro which can be stressed. First, Du Bois formulated, in the words of Lewis, a triadic conceptual framework of race, social class, and economic system (D.L. Lewis 1993: 208). Those three factors were integral to the social dynamics causing the problematic conditions and experiences of African Americans in Philadelphia. Racial prejudice, for Du Bois, hindered even the most skilled, educated, and industrious African Americans from achieving more than they had already. Yet the intra-race class distinctions were in part based on how the upper classes of African Americans, according to Du Bois, were able to survive in a rough capitalist economic system via their values of hard work, financial thrift, and moral restraint. 

    Du Bois set forth an overall dynamic to explain the condition of African Americans in the city through theoretically linking personal behaviors, attitudes, and world views to a specific socio-economic context. For Du Bois, the historical legacy of slavery (TPN: sec.21: 97; sec.24: 145; sec.39: 249; sec.43: 284) and persistent racist prejudice in jobs and business (TPN: sec.23: 134; sec.43: 284; sec.47: 350-351; sec.58: 395) resulted in behaviors and attitudes which, he argued, were not conducive of a productive lifestyle and good work habits (TPN: sec.57: 390-393). In Du Bois' analysis, only the business entrepreneurs and professionals in the law, the church, and medicine (among a few others) had assimilated enough of the requisite cultural values which would enable them to prosper vis-à-vis the working class blacks, even though all African Americans lived within an encompassing racist environment. (For a critique of Du Bois' cultural argument in TPN, see Bay 1998; Zuberi 2004 [synopsis as PDF file]). 

    Regarding the second significant facet of TPN, Lewis pointed out that the kernel of Du Bois's concept of the "talented tenth" (later elaborated in Du Bois 1903c) was found in the Philadelphia research (D.L. Lewis 1993: 209). In TPN Du Bois examined groups of professionals and entrepreneurs (TPN: sec.22: 100; sec.46: 311) -- or the "best classes" or the "aristocrats" of African Americans, as Du Bois termed them (TPN: sec.46: 316-318). Du Bois wrote that they were "distanced" from the masses of African Americans in Philadelphia by their own desire to set themselves apart from the others, by their key differences of world view, and by the unpredictable rigors of the economy which required much attention. Du Bois believed, however, that the professionals and entrepreneurs should serve the "lowest classes" (to use his phrase). 

    The full text of The Philadelphia Negro can be found at Dr. Larry Ridener's Dead Sociologists' Society web page. Dr. Ridener is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Pfeiffer University. 
Du Bois, W.E.B. 1899. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 
URL: http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/
DuBois/pntoc.html

Du Bois' The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: A Social Study

    While still conducting his research in Philadelphia, Du Bois learned of an opportunity with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, under the supervision of Carroll Wright, was in the process of commissioning of studies of African Americans. The Bureau would eventually sponsor nine studies from 1897 to 1903 (Grossman 1974; D.L. Lewis 1993: 194-197; U.S. Department of Labor n.d.). 

    During July and August of 1897 -- taking two months off from the TPN project -- Du Bois traveled to Farmville, Virginia to conduct field work using the methods of the Philadelphia research: survey interviews of African Americans, archival studies of various data housed locally, and participant observation. While in Farmville Du Bois also studied the nearby and chiefly African American community of Israel Hill. Du Bois examined various demographic variables like occupations and wages, conjugal conditions of marriages and divorces, and the value and amount of property holdings, family expenditures, among others. The resulting report, entitled "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: a Social Study" (NFVA), was published in early 1898. David Levering Lewis wrote that such methods became the "standard" for the methodological approach taken with the Atlanta University Studies, for which Du Bois was soon to become the coordinator (D.L. Lewis 1993: 195). 

    The NFVA study was published before The Philadelphia Negro and the Du Boisian-edited Atlanta University Studies. The significance of the Farmville study, according to David Levering Lewis (1993: 197), was that Du Bois identified the presence of growing class distinctions within the African American community and drew attention to the demographic dynamics associated with increasing industrialization and urbanization (NFVA: 38 [Note: find the page numbers by scrolling through the web page cited.]). 

    I would like to further frame the importance of the work in light of Du Bois' long-standing research project. By studying various aspects of daily life Du Bois sought to uncover the local conditions of an African American community (see Du Bois 1898c). Du Bois's emphasis on demographic factors like occupations, educational attainment, conjugal conditions, and family expenditures invited readers to glimpse the African Americans of Farmville in ways other than the negative stereotypes often depicted in the news and popular culture of the era. Readers were also challenged in the study with data on Whites from the area and from America as a whole as well as from several European countries like France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Hungary, and Ireland. Such data invited comparisons of African Americans in Farmville with population groups both in the same area and with other countries. 

    We can read the Farmville study as asking this question: how really different are African Americans in comparison with America as a whole? We note, for instance, that the jobs are heavily concentrated in manufacturing (chiefly, tobacco in Farmville) and domestic/personal services (NFVA: 16, 19, 21). When compared with the U.S. overall, African Americans in Farmville were more heavily concentrated in such occupations. Despite some differences, however, African Americans were developing in many ways along the lines approved by mainstream White America. For example, Du Bois wrote about the Black entrepreneurs in the area: "The individual undertaker of business enterprise is a new figure among Negroes, and his rise deserves to be carefully watched, as it means much for the future of the race." (NFVA: 17). On a similar theme Du Bois wrote: "Even to-day the economic importance of the black population of Farmville has brought many white men to say 'mister' to the preacher and teacher and to raise their hats to their wives." (NFVA: 21-22). Such was a point also made by Booker T. Washington. African Americans, said the Wizard of Tuskegee, would earn the respect of Whites and thereby gain some measures of security by providing economically useful skills, products, and services (see Washington 1899: 335 and 1901: 202-203).

    Moreover, Du Bois noted where he had observed conditions needing improvement within the African American community. For example, Du Bois reported that there were no Black doctors or lawyers in Farmville (NFVA: 16). Readers of the era seeking "racial uplift," as it was called, might then be prompted to rectify the situation. As a second example, Du Bois indicated that "[a] considerable number of idlers and loafers shows that the industrial situation in Farmville is not altogether satisfactory and that the moral tone of the Negroes has room for great betterment. One of the principal causes of idleness is the irregular employment." (NFVA: 22). In t hose examples Du Bois highlighted a causal argument to explain at least some of the negative determinants on morals: specifically, the irregular jobs often found in the area's tobacco and manufacturing sectors. 

    As indicated in the discussion about The Philadelphia Negro, Du Bois situated individual behaviors within a larger socio-historical context. Overall, Du Bois reached the judgment that "it seems fair to conclude, after an impartial study of Farmville conditions, that the industrious and property accumulating class of the Negro citizens best represents, on the whole, the general tendencies of the group. At the same time, the mass of sloth and immorality, is still large and threatening" (NFVA: 38). The NFVA study thus presented its readers with potentially actionable information in a particular locality and community. 

    The online source for the Farmville study is the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library. 
Du Bois, W.E.B. 1898. "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: A Social Study." Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, Vol. 14. Washington, DC: GPO, January. Pp. 1-38. 
URL: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/
modeng/public/DubFarm.html

Du Bois and the Atlanta University Publications

    Du Bois' work which eventually lead to the publication of The Philadelphia Negro had exhibited his social-scientific skills. On the basis of such accomplishments the president of Atlanta University, Horace Bumstead, asked Du Bois to come there to teach (D.L. Lewis 1993: 198). Du Bois became the head the Atlanta University Conferences after 1897 (D.L. Lewis 1993: 217-225). The conferences had generated two works already under the direction of George Bradford. Bradford had utilized surveys and had scrutinized census data in Atlanta University Publication No. 1, Mortality among Negroes in Cities (AUMC: 7-10 [Note: these hyperlinks connect to the cited DjVu-formatted documents themselves and not to specific pages.]). Under the leadership of Du Bois, the Atlanta University Conferences would further extend the social science approach to various other topics, and would balance thereby the tone of moral rectitude and exhortation which often characterized discussions of how African Americans might ameliorate their conditions and oppression. 

    The goals of Atlanta University Conferences and their associated Atlanta University Publications were clearly stated and adhered to the research program expressed in Du Bois' "The Study of the Negro Problems" (1898c). In the Preface to a volume which Du Bois co-edited, Morals and Manners among Negro Americans (AUMM 1913), the goals were conveyed as follows. 

There is only one sure basis of social reform and that is Truth -- a careful, detailed knowledge of the essential facts of each social problem. Without this there is no logical starting place for reform and uplift. Social difficulties may be clear and we may inveigh against them, but the causes proximate and remote are seldom clear to the casual observer and usually are quite hidden from the man who suffers from, or is sensitive to, the results of the snarl. 
     To no set of problems are these truths more applicable than to the so-called Negro problems. 
[. . . .] 
     [M]anners and morals lend themselves but seldom to exact measurement. Consequently, general impressions, limited observations and wild gossip supply the usual data; and these make it extremely difficult to weigh the evidence and to answer the charge. 
     This study is an attempt to collect opinion on the general subject of morals and manners among Negro Americans from those who ought to know. It is by no means complete or definitive, but it is to some degree enlightening. 
[. . . .] 
     The study is, therefore, a further carrying out of the plan of social study of the Negro American, by means of an annual series of decennially recurring subjects covering, so far as is practicable, every phase of human life. This plan originated at Atlanta University in 1896. The object of these studies is primarily scientific -- a careful research for truth...; [. . . .] Our object is not simply to serve science. We wish not only to make the truth clear but to present it in such shape as will encourage and help social reform. (AUMM: 5-6) 
    As was common with Du Bois, the metatheoretical insights of his research program often were stated matter-of-factly. This passage summarizes several of Du Bois' conceptions about the role of social-scientific inquiry, including:

(a) the preeminent importance of the pursuit of truth via adherence to the tenets of the scientific method (including the neutral stance of the researcher); 

(b) the foundation for social reform lies in the gathering and analysis of such scientific data;

(c) the crucial relevance of such studies to counteract extant beliefs about African Americans; and 

(d) the necessity of a multiple studies to be conducted over time on the same topics (and their attendant variables). 

    Yet the goal of longitudinal inquiries as the scientific basis of knowledge was not achieved by Du Bois. Several years prior to the end of the Conferences, Du Bois had departed to New York in 1910 to take on the responsibilities of editor of The Crisis, the N.A.A.C.P.'s periodical of record (D.L. Lewis 1993: 386). Funding shortages eventually led to the end of the Atlanta University Conferences (D.L. Lewis 1993: 379, 383). The last report was published under the editorship of Thomas Brown in 1917. Years later, Du Bois encouraged various Land Grant Colleges in the 1940s to set up a plan of social-scientific studies akin to the earlier Atlanta University reports (Du Bois 1968: ch. xviii: 309ff). Despite being adopted by the participating colleges, the proposed studies generated little research due to a lack of funding (Du Bois 1968: ch. xviii: 324-325). 

    Although Du Bois' vision of a sustained, institutionalized research project did not materialize, the Du Bois-led Atlanta University conferences did yield at least two important benefits (Gabbidon 1999; E. Wright II 2002a and 2005). First, they provided some data to highlight problems in specific geographical areas and on specific topics. For example, in The College-Bred Negro (AUCN 1900) Du Bois wished to answer "mainstream concerns" over whether Black colleges were generating "too many" graduates and making African Americans "unfit" for the available jobs (also see Du Bois' "The Atlanta Conferences," 1904a: 59). Du Bois countered with survey results which may have pleased some Whites of the era: the majority of African American college graduates were gainfully employed in a range of professions (AUCN: 37; 63, 72). 

    As a second benefit of the Atlanta University Conferences, some of the Studies provided more anecdotal data than statistically analyzable data points. For example, Morals and Manners among Negro Americans provided pages of verbatim answers by the respondents to the survey questions (AUMM). Such passages certainly have their social-scientific uses. Although the responses were not the result of in-depth interviews and were not subjected to content analysis, such voices fleshed out, and thereby made more human, the "arid" statistical averages also presented in the Studies. Du Bois likewise had done this to some extent in The Philadelphia Negro (e.g., TPN: sec.47). Such brief glimpses into the minds of respondents perhaps could have been used for the formulation of hypotheses at a later time -- maybe even in the 21th Century. 

    Not all of the published studies, collectively called the Atlanta University Publications, are available online. For a full list of the Studies see E. Wright II (2002b). The Library at the University of Georgia (UGA) has made many of them accessible online, and plans to post more of them (UGA Main Reference 2005). The main web page for the Atlanta University Publications is located in the Facsimile Books Section at the University of Georgia Libraries. Another good source for several of the Atlanta University studies is the "Documenting the American South" project at the University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

    The documents at the University of Georgia Libraries are readable only in the DjVu format. This format is designed for efficient distribution of digital documents and color images. Reading DjVu files will require the relatively simple installation of a special viewer for use with Internet-capable browsers. There are DjVu plug-ins for Windows, Macintosh, and Unix systems. Here is the download page at the company, Lizardtech, which offers free plug-ins for those various systems. (Note: Although I have not had any problems with the DjVu format or plug-in, I can neither legally guarantee, nor do I claim, that computer programs or software related to the DjVu format will work effectively for others). 

    The Atlanta University Publications are arranged below by number, and not necessarily by date of publication. The publisher for the works is "Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press." 

Chase, Thomas N. 1903. Mortality Among Negroes in Cities, 2nd Edition, Abridged. No. 1. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup01
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
books/bv.fcgi?rid=history.chapter.115
[History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine] 

______. 1897. Social and Physical Condition of Negroes in Cities. No. 2
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup02

Du Bois, W.E.B., ed. 1898. Some Efforts of American Negroes For Their Own Social Betterment. No. 3. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup03
URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/duboisau/menu.html

______, ed. 1900. The College-Bred Negro. No. 5. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup05

______, ed. 1901. The Negro Common School. No. 6. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup06

______, ed. 1902. The Negro Artisan. No. 7. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup07 

______, ed. 1903. The Negro Church. No. 8. 
URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/negrochurch/menu.html

______, ed. 1904. Some Notes on Negro Crime Particularly in Georgia. No. 9. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup09

______, ed. 1905. A Select Bibliography of the American Negro. No. 10. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup10

______, ed. 1907. Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans. No. 12. 
URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/dubois07/menu.html

Du Bois, W. E. B. and Augustus Granville Dill, eds. 1913. Morals and Manners among Negro Americans. No. 18. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup18
URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/morals/menu.html

Brown, Thomas I., ed. 1917. Economic Co-operation among the Negroes of Georgia. No. 19. 
URL: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup19

Closing Remarks 

    As time passed, Du Bois' social-scientific mode of data-driven research increasingly was replaced with document-based research, as works like The Negro (1915), Black Reconstruction in America (1935), and The World and Africa (1947) bore witness. Those writings, together with his editorial duties at The Crisis, his world travels, and his Pan-Africanist activities, tended to occupy more and more of his attention over the years. 

    The later Du Bois, certainly, did not eschew social science or its advocacy. He edited a journal, Phylon, which encouraged and published social-scientific research (Du Bois 1940a). Moreover, Du Bois did try to rekindle the Atlanta University studies in the 1940s (Du Bois 1968: ch. xviii; see also D.L. Lewis 2000: 490-494). While that attempt sputtered out, Du Bois' goal of rigorous social-scientific inquiry into the conditions of African Americans did not. 

    Researchers have followed Du Bois' lead throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st, including Richard R. Wright, Jr. (1903), Monroe Nathan Work (1922), and E. Franklin Frazier (1939), among others (see Young & Deskins 2001). Quite appropriately, the DuBois Institute at Clark Atlanta University has reintroduced annual conferences on socially relevant issues (DuBois Institute: n.d.). Other institutions of higher education -- even some of those with which Du Bois had been associated -- continue to carry on empirical inquiries with public policy implications. At the risk of slighting others, let me point out the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University; and the Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The latter Institute publishes the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race [journal home page].

Du Bois' social-scientific works have a varied and lasting significance. Not only is there a wealth of detail in the data he gathered, but also his research approaches are still useful nowadays when probing the causes of racial differentiation, marginalization, and disproportionate burdens. The Internet, via its myriad and virtual pathways, permits the distribution of such information and allows us to spread the challenge of W.E.B. Du Bois to a broader audience. 

Regarding the References 

* Bibliographic citations for the Atlanta University Publications are included in the text above. 
* I have tried to choose primary and secondary works at "institutional/ized" web sites in an attempt to provide somewhat predictably stable sources. Such would include academic-related web sites and Project Gutenberg. Nonetheless, the ephemeral dimension of the Internet means that the hyperlinked sources contained within this essay may disappear. In addition to using Internet search engines like Google or Yahoo Search to track down "lost" pages, one might be able to locate them via the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine" (www.archive.org). 
* References which are marked by "[DjVu]" indicate the DjVu format and require the free browser plug-in before viewing. 


References: The Works of W.E.B. Du Bois 

1898a. "The Negroes of Farmville, Virginia: A Social Study." Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor, v. 14. Washington, DC: GPO (January): 1-38. 
Online: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/
toc/modeng/public/DubFarm.html
Accessed: 4 April 2005.

Editor. 1898b. Some Efforts of American Negroes For Their Own Social Betterment. No. 3. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup03 [DjVu]
Online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/duboisau/menu.html

1898c [1978]. "The Study of the Negro Problems." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, v. 11 (January): 1-23. Pp. 70-84 in Du Bois: On Sociology and the Black Community. Ed. by Daniel Green & Edwin Driver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

1899 [1996]. The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Online: http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/
~lridener/DSS/DuBois/pntoc.html
Accessed: 4 April 2005. 

Editor. 1900. The College-Bred Negro. No. 5. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup05 [DjVu

Editor. 1901. The Negro Common School. No. 6. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press. 
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup06 [DjVu]

Editor. 1902. The Negro Artisan. No. 7. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup07 [DjVu]

Editor. 1903a. The Negro Church. No. 8. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/negrochurch/menu.html

1903b. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 
Online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/duboissouls/menu.html
Accessed: 30 March 2005. 

1903c. "The Talented Tenth." Ch. 2 in Booker T. Washington, ed., The Negro Problem. NY: James Pott & Co. 
Online: http://www.gutenberg.org
/dirs/1/5/0/4/15041/15041-h/15041-h.htm
#The Talented_Tenth
Accessed: 30 March 2005. 

1904a [1978]. "The Atlanta Conferences." Voice of the Negro, v. 1 (March): 85-89. Pp. 53-60 in Du Bois: On Sociology and the Black Community. Ed. by Daniel Green & Edwin Driver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Editor. 1904b. Some Notes on Negro Crime Particularly in Georgia. No. 9. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup09 [DjVu]page=plugins">DjVu]

Editor. 1905. A Select Bibliography of the American Negro. No. 10. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup10 [DjVu]

Editor. 1907. Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans. No. 12. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/dubois07/menu.html

Co-Editor with Augustus Granville Dill. 1913. Morals and Manners among Negro Americans. No. 18. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University Press.
Online: http://fax.libs.uga.edu/
E185x5xA881p/aup18 [DjVu]
Online: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
church/morals/menu.html

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