W. E. B. Du Bois Lectured at Willamette University 100 Years Ago

Amid the rising popularity of the Second Klan, and in support of an early book concept, W. E. B. Du Bois lectured at Willamette University 100 years ago on March 20th, 1923.

WU Collegian
March 14th, 1923

The announcement hit the morning and afternoon city papers also. The morning paper simply churned the notice in the Collegian. The notice in the afternoon paper gave a different title to the lecture and seemed to be somewhat independently composed.

Afternoon paper
March 19th, 1923

Morning paper
March 20th, 1923

"The Black Man in the Wounded World," the title from the Collegian and the morning paper, is very likely the correct title. In a recent article, "In the Shadow of World War: Revisiting W. E. B. Du Bois's Black Reconstruction," Chad Williams writes:

Du Bois, in fact, envisioned Black Reconstruction as the first of two consecutive books exploring the history and meaning of democracy for Black people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second book was a study of the participation of African Americans and other people of African descent in World War I, titled The Black Man and the Wounded World....Du Bois initially titled the book “The Black Man in the Revolution of 1914-1918.” He offered a detailed, albeit preliminary, survey in the June 1919 issue of The Crisis. The first indication of his revised name for the book appeared in early 1923, when he delivered a series of lectures on the Black experience in the World War under the title “The Black Man in the Wounded World.”

The book never got finished. (You can see an outline from 1936 here. I am sorry I did not find the lecture notice in time for the showing of the Buffalo Soldiers film last month!)

The afternoon paper's review the next day seems somewhat more engaged and less skeptical than the morning paper two days later, though they repeat phrases as if they were working off a common text.

Afternoon paper
March 21st, 1923

Morning paper
March 22nd, 1923

It would be great to find out more about how Du Bois and the talk were received. In his 1943 history, Chronicles of Willamette, Robert Moulton Gatke doesn't mention the occasion. Unfortunately, the Collegian does not seem to have any follow-up notice in the March 21st or April 5th issues, and the afternoon city paper doesn't seem to have anything either. Beatrice Morrow Cannady's paper, the Advocate, starts digitized issues only in May of 1923. The Oregon Journal noted a dinner party with them, and there is likely discussion in the Advocate.

Oregon Journal, March 21st, 1923

The visit to the Willamette Valley cities had started a few days earlier. In Portland there were lectures at Lincoln High School, First Congregational Church, Reed College, and Temple Beth Israel. The Williams Avenue YWCA had been a sponsor.*

Before coming to Salem for the evening lecture, Du Bois was in Eugene earlier in the day giving talks at UO. It does not seem likely he spent the night in Salem. You may recall somewhat later stories of Mark Hatfield having to drive Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson to Portland after they gave performances at WU because no hotel here would accommodate them. It is nearly certain Du Bois' "home base" for the visit was in Portland.

WU Collegian, Nov. 7th, 1923

A few months after the talk, a note in the Collegian welcomed the Klan on the occasion of the big parade and the chartering of a Salem chapter on November 10th. The note is in a gossipy, jocular column, and it is hard to say how representative it might be. Still, there were other notes in the Collegian uncritical or welcoming of the Klan, and at the least there was a substantial constituency for it among the students.

There are so many questions, and it would be so very interesting to learn more about Du Bois' visit to Salem and Willamette University.

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* In a letter of February 27th to Mabel Byrd of the Williams Avenue YWCA, Du Bois indicates that the talk at Willamette was set up separately from the ones in Portland and Eugene. (Cited in Kimberly Jensen's "Women's 'Positive Patriotic Duty' to Participate: The Practicle of Female Citizenship in Oregon and the Expanding Surveillance State during the First World War and its Aftermath," Oregon Historical Quarterly vol.118, no. 2, Summer 2017.) More on Byrd at Wikipedia.