W.E.B. Du Bois and "Negro Problem"  

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I bring greetings from the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. It is a real pleasure to be here with you. My topic this morning is W.E.B. Du Bois and the “Negro Problem.” My current research at the University of Pennsylvania focuses on Du Bois and the book he wrote in 1899, The Philadelphia Negro. I want to tell you about my path in coming to this project and what this project means to me and to my understanding of racial disparities today. But first let me tell you something about Du Bois and his study of Philadelphia.

THE INVITATION

The invitation to come to Philadelphia wasn’t a particularly good one. It involved only temporary work, not a permanent position. And while the invitation nominally came from the University of Pennsylvania, it was really the reform-minded ladies of the College Settlement Association who had the idea for a study of blacks in Philadelphia. Penn offered the temporary title of “assistant in sociology.” A faculty position would have been more fitting for one of the best educated men in the country—black or white—but William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was already well aware of how racism pervaded academia.

Still, the invitation was what he needed to escape the evangelical faith that dominated Wilberforce College, where he had spent his first years teaching after completing his Ph.D. at Harvard. He hoped that, if he could impress his new employer, the University of Pennsylvania might offer something more permanent. Du Bois thought he belonged at a major Eastern university, not a small black Midwestern school, and this appeared to be his best chance. So, in the summer of 1896, he moved with his new bride, Nina Gomer, into a room above the settlement house just north of South Street at the edge of Philadelphia’s old 7th Ward.

THE PROBLEM

Like their counterparts in London, Chicago, and New York, the women who ran Philadelphia’s settlement house were dedicated to serving the poor in their neighborhood through a range of programs for children and adults, including classes in English, American history, and carpentry, gymnastic clubs, choir drill, and lectures. The women were also active in local politics, assembling a slate of progressive candidates to challenge the complacent Republican Party that had dominated Philadelphia politics for decades. But the 7th Ward was a lock for the Republicans in part because blacks sold their votes in exchange for a very limited number of municipal jobs and protection for their voting clubs, which were often illegal drinking houses. This was the so-called “Negro problem” that Du Bois was invited to study.

That blacks would sell their votes so cheaply indicated how deep discrimination in employment ran in Philadelphia. Blacks had almost no access to the manufacturing jobs that allowed Irish, German, Russian, and Italian immigrants of the 19th Century to get ahead. Municipal jobs offered a welcome alternative to the domestic service work that occupied 30 percent of black men and 70 percent of black women in Philadelphia at the turn of the century. The settlement ladies thought a black researcher would have more success studying this “Negro problem” and give authority to their ideas about what was needed to fix it. It seems only fair that Du Bois had ulterior motives in accepting the Philadelphia invitation given how little interest the University had in him and how sure the settlement association ladies were that they already knew what was wrong with the 7th Ward.

THE BOOK

Du Bois did not let any of this impact the quality of his research. He tirelessly interviewed members of the 2,500 black households within the densely-populated study area that was 20 blocks across and just 3 blocks tall, about a half square mile in all. His final report provided insight about black class structure which constituted an important intellectual contribution. But his insistence on distinguishing among blacks also sounded like the personal plea of an accomplished black man who did not want to be confused with the poor people of the 7th Ward. He wrote, “There is always a strong tendency on the part of the community to consider the Negroes as composing one practically homogenous mass. Nothing more exasperates the better class of Negroes than this tendency to ignore utterly their existence.” He would later coin the phrase “talented tenth” to refer to elite blacks like himself who, he insisted, had a moral obligation to uplift those in the lower classes.

The University published The Philadelphia Negro in 1899, listing Du Bois as the “some time assistant in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania,” as well as professor at Atlanta University, where he, Nina, and their infant son, William, had moved after he finished his fieldwork in Philadelphia. The book was regarded at the time as a sturdy piece of work by those who were willing to review research by a black scholar (the American Journal of Sociology, among others, was not). The University never did offer him a permanent position. Today, the book is considered a classic by sociologists, ethnographers, anthropologists, urban historians and others for its innovative methodology and detailed findings in regard to black city life.

MY CONNECTION

This book, The Philadelphia Negro, is now as the center of my own research. I’ve been working all summer with a wonderful bunch of student research assistants to assemble historical census data so we can recreate Du Bois’s foot survey. Eventually we will make this available on the Internet using interactive mapping so that high school and college students reading the book will be able to virtually explore the Old 7th Ward as Du Bois found it. The opportunity to speak here today has led me to consider just why this has become so important to me. Why is a white woman from New Hampshire so drawn to this story of The Philadelphia Negro? I always imagine that is what people are wondering when I tell them about my project, why are you doing this? More likely, I am projecting my own insecurities on to them, so knowing the answer may be what I need to feel more confident about claiming to do research about this great African American intellectual.

It’s relatively easy to explain why an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a trained social worker teaching in a Department of City and Regional Planning, would take on a project like this. In part, the reason is that this is Penn’s story to tell. Du Bois came to work for Penn and the University failed to secure one of the 20th Century’s greatest minds for its own faculty. There is penance to do, and it is appropriate that white people at Penn be a part of that. In addition, several of Penn’s leading historians and sociologists—people like Michael Katz, Elijah Anderson, Tom Sugrue, and Tukufu Zuberi—have written about The Philadelphia Negro, so there is a significant intellectual investment on which to build.

My education and professional training have also steered me to this project. As an undergraduate history major at Middlebury College, I took an African American History course with Professor Jim Ralph during the spring of 1992, at the time of the riots in Los Angeles. I chose graduate school in social work and social welfare over history, but my dissertation on racial discrimination in housing was entirely historical. I learned how to use geographic information systems, software for making maps and analyzing spatial data, in graduate school. This is a project that takes advantage of my interest in urban history, social welfare, and GIS.

But that doesn’t explain why I feel personally drawn to this story. Of all the topics I could research, why did I choose The Philadelphia Negro? The more I’ve read about Du Bois, the more intrigued I am by him, but he is a difficult person to like. According to most accounts, he was harsh and arrogant in his professional dealings and not very attentive to his family. I feel increasing respect for his professional accomplishments but little warmth for the person. I feel much more empathy for the white ladies of the College Settlement Association who knew the world was unjust and searched—awkwardly and not without prejudice—for their role in making things better.

But even though I don’t feel much of a connection to Du Bois, himself, I feel a strong connection to what he studied. Since taking my African American history course in college, I have felt drawn to cities and to being involved in African American communities. Or maybe it would be more honest to say I went searching for a connection to cities and African American communities after the LA riots, which left me thoroughly puzzled. How could something so terrible and violent happen involving so many people to which I felt no personal connection? From Middlebury I went to Washington DC where I worked on a survey of childhood hunger and as a welfare caseworker, jobs that allowed me to learn about poverty from poor people, themselves, most of whom were African American. In Philadelphia, I have been involved in the summer camp and after school programs at Church of the Advocate, a black Episcopal Church in North Philadelphia with a strong history of civil rights activism and community involvement. I know that there are injustices in the world other than American racism and that people other than African Americans have been oppressed. But I have chosen as my own mission to help improve the life chances of African American children.

THE PROBLEM TODAY

To assert that the “Negro Problem”—that is, the problems facing African Americans that Du Bois witnessed a century ago—is the same as what we have today is to oversimplify a complicated century of race relations. We now have legal safeguards against racial discrimination in employment, housing, education, and voting. Our public welfare system provides a layer—at least a thin layer—of economic security unknown 100 years ago. But we still have racism—reshaped, reinvented, and reinforced over the past 100 years. And we have vast racial disparities in nearly all of the areas that matter. The area that matters most to me right now is gun violence in Philadelphia. While white children and adults are too often killed by guns, young black men are by far the most frequent victims. Or perhaps it is better to say that black communities are the chief victims, in order to acknowledge the terrible suffering of the mothers and girlfriends and children who disproportionately feel the loss.

Our newspapers in Philadelphia are full of maps showing exactly where each person has been murdered in the city, perfectly round dots dropped on top of intersecting line segments meant to represent the places where they died. Give me an hour and I can teach anyone how to make maps just like that. But what about a map of grief? How would you represent that? What symbols would you use? Is there a color scheme capable of representing the extreme difference between the collective grief felt by neighborhoods? What color should be used for my upper middle class neighborhood where children choose between the swim club, cello lessons, and co-ed soccer leagues? And what color should be used for the neighborhood south and west of mine where over 90 people have been shot and killed since New Year’s Day, where kids walk around with t-shirts spray-painted with the names of their murdered siblings and cousins, and mothers clutch framed photographs of their slain children at rallies to stop the violence?

When I left Philadelphia last week, the count of people shot and killed was up to 240—and that’s just the people who have died; many more have been shot and survived. I read the profiles of these victims in the newspaper and try to imagine what it feels like to be the mother, sister, or friend left behind. Most of the time I just can’t feel any connection. Where I live and work, I don’t worry very much about being shot or having someone I know shot. I know rationally that Philadelphia is losing so much from gun violence. Maybe we have already lost our next Poet Laureate, our next Senator or President, or people who were meant to become great teachers, singers or comedians. Maybe someone capable of brokering peace in the Middle East was shot and killed in our streets. I should be crying every day when I read the newspaper. The grief should be overwhelming.

Du Bois talked about the tendency for white people to distance themselves from the problems that blacks face by physically distancing themselves through separate work and social circles. Today, we insulate ourselves through segregated neighborhoods, schools, and churches. I live, work, and worship with predominantly white groups of people even though Philadelphia is 45 percent African American and my neighborhood, employer, and church are among the most liberal in the city. In the concluding chapter of The Philadelphia Negro, entitled “the meaning of it all,” Du Bois explains that the real problem was that whites were denying the humanity of their black neighbors. The world was, in his words, “gliding… into a wider humanity.” More different kinds of people were beginning to be accepted. But, as he wrote, “with the Negroes of Africa we come to a full stop… This feeling, widespread and deep-seated, is, in America, the vastest of the Negro problems….” Isn’t this what Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes wrote about, being invisible, being denied the right to dream and hope and expect goodness from the world? Isn’t this what Sweet Honey in the Rock sing about, wanting the killing of black men to be as important as the killing of white men? Isn’t that what Jonathan Kozol speaks about, the children we are slowly killing in homeless shelters and decrepit schools?

THE ANSWER

Du Bois’s intention was, in his words, to “lay before the public such a body of information as may be a safe guide for all efforts toward the solution of the many Negro problems of a great American city.” He hoped it would serve as “the scientific basis of further study and of practical reform.” But the book did not lead immediately to new research or legislation, save his own work at Atlanta University. I don’t think it’s too late to realize Du Bois’s hope for this book. Despite the moralizing language and somewhat dated theories about race and economics, the book still has relevance for us today. It provides an opportunity for kids in Philadelphia to learn about the role of racism in shaping our city. I doubt most of them know that some of the expensive downtown Philadelphia neighborhoods were once home to thousands of African Americans or that blacks were denied access to jobs in the now abandoned factories throughout their neighborhoods. It provides an opportunity for suburban children to study discrimination and privilege in 1896 Philadelphia as a way of thinking more honestly about how they shape their own world today.

This is an academic project. It is about raising grant money, building databases, and publishing journal articles. But is also a spiritual project about talking, listening, learning, building relationships, and feeling more connected to one another. Yes, this project is about pushing technology and doing cool things. I hope, for example, that we will succeed in creating a handheld version of our GIS database that people can access using GPS and wireless Internet technology while they walk through the 7th Ward. But I pray that this project will change hearts. The Philadelphia Negro may not have the power to make people cry about what is happening in Philadelphia today, but it does have the power to remove some of the protective layers of insulation so that we all feel more of the love and sadness and joy that is meant to bind us together.

May it be so.

Please know that you are welcome at First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. Our city is a wonderful place to visit, despite the challenges I’ve mentioned. It would be my pleasure to give you a tour of the 7th Ward should you find yourself down that way.

Contributing a Historic Preservation Perspective to the Project  

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James Samuel Stemons: History of an Unknown Laborer and Intellectual 1890-1922  

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Everybody Loves Du Bois  

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I am continually renewed by the interest that people of all backgrounds have taken in the Mapping the DuBois Philadelphia Negro project. This appreciation comes from folks beyond the academic world in which we are headquartered (in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania) - high school students, bloggers, artists, social workers, people of faith, as well as historians, city planners, professors, researchers, and undeclared undergraduates, have all joined the discussion in one way or another. On a personal level, it has also been fun to read genuine enthusiasm on the faces of my friends and family when I talk about our work.

I think the main reason for this enthusiasm is the fun fact that maps are cool. It is neat to see where people lived, where street names have changed and how demographics have shifted over the course of 109 years. Often the real surprise, however, is how much the city has stayed the same. Seeing the blocks and the buildings as they have stood for generations makes a person feel an unexpected connection to the folks who came before.

I was initially concerned that the the DuBois Project would be marginalized as an African-American story and not the story of a gifted American scholar mapping the course of cultural and economic integration in the big city. I am a firm believer that African-American history should be an integral part of American history as a whole; I think folks of all backgrounds would benefit just as much as African Americans from hearing the inspiring tales of struggle and triumph of black America. Teaching American History and African-American History as different subjects gives non-blacks the opportunity to opt out. Knowing this risk, the Philadelphia school system recently required all students to study African-American history, regardless of their heritage.

My fear has been that non-blacks will overlook or ignore the value of DuBois’ work. This would indeed be sad. The work he set in motion over one hundred years ago is clearly not yet complete. If we are to overcome the persistent problems facing many of the disadvantaged in our city, we need to continue to listen to history.

I am glad to report, however, that as far as my eyes have seen, these fears appear to be unjustified. Granted, my eyes can only see so far, but the people I speak with have again and again pricked up their ears when I mention my work on Mapping DuBois. Philadelphians in particular, are proud of DuBois’ work and keenly curious about the physical and demographic changes in the Seventh Ward, which now one of the loveliest and most diverse sections of Center City.

Building Faith and Building Brethren  

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To Spit or Not to Spit?  

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While walking down a Philadelphia street, it is common to see someone spitting or spit on the ground. Some people find it acceptable, while others are mildly grossed out. Unaware to most Philadelphians, spitting on “sidewalks, streets, subways, concourses, floors, or passageways of public buildings or in any other place frequented by the public” is prohibited according to Title 10, Section 601 of Philadelphia’s legal code. And when this law was passed over 100 years ago, the city tried to enforce it.

Today, spitting has a different meaning than it did hundreds of years ago, mainly because of chewing tobacco. In colonial America, one of the major crops was Tobacco and one of the forms of using tobacco is chewing it. With chewing tobacco, you regularly spit out the tobacco juices and saliva that builds up. This mixture is pretty disgusting because of its clear-brown color and bad smell. The hundreds of thousands of tobacco chewers during this era would not hesitate to spit this juice wherever they could, including public buildings, streetcars and sidewalks. Chewing tobacco is still around today, but it is less popular than it once was.

In May of 1897, some “No Spitting Signs” mysteriously appeared on lampposts on busy Philadelphia streets. People wondered where and why these signs showed up on popular streets around the city. Some people even feared that their rights as citizens of the United States were being violated. These signs were being posted after members of Health societies around their nation took this issue on as their crusade to try to make spitting against the law. The cause of this crusade focused mainly on tobacco chewers who would spit their tobacco juice in public places. The activists believed that if they stopped the spitting they could control the spread of Tuberculosis, which was extremely deadly at the time if one contracted it. Eventually, the Board passed a law, which prohibited spitting in public places in the city however, it was really never enforced. But what if it was?

Could you imagine being fined for spitting? Or imagine baseball without spitting, especially the Philadelphia Phillies of the early nineties, who were notorious for using chewing tobacco. I know it seem like a minute detail of life, but would Philadelphia and other cities around the world really benefit from a law prohibiting spitting? So I ask you the question, to spit or not to spit?