I have had such a magnificent time, I must
say. I've told the world about the high quality
Dartmouth students, and the marvelous time we've been wrestling with paideia. Du Bois is much more difficult than a lot
of people think. People might have stereotypical views of Du
Bois. “Oh my god, he pushes us against the wall.” I want to thank each and every one of you
for allowing me to be a part of the wrestling, but I especially want to salute a very, very
dear sister who really facilitated this whole thing under the leadership of Dean my very
dear sister Dean Barbara Will. I have a wonderful gift for our dear sister
Sarah. Where's sister Sarah? Where is she? Where is she? Come, come, come, come! A wonderful gift of these flowers. Oh, I know we don't want to embarrass you
but we just appreciate the quality of your work and your love and what else do we have
here? We've got a card because this is paideia,
it requires words, sometimes. There's this lovely gift here. Sarah: Thank you. Cornel West: Definitely. And you know, that's connected to sister Maria,
sister Nikkita, who have been so marvelous and have been kind enough to come to this
class. Now, it's the second time you all here, right? Speaker 3: Yep. Cornel West: Good God all mighty. Let's give it up-
Speaker 3: We watch it online. Cornel West: Oh, you watch it online every
week anyway? Oh! But let's give it up for our dear sister. We're proud of you. Sarah: Dr. West thank you so much. Cornel West: Absolutely, absolutely. It makes a big, big difference. Absolutely. Very much so. Now, I want to begin today with the word that
I could remember last week. You remember, I had a senior moment. I had a moment where, given my absentmindedness
and dimwittedness, that I couldn't remember that word. The turning of the soul. The turning of the soul. Why is that so very important? You can't talk about the Sorrow Songs, you
can't talk about revolution the way Du Bois talks about it without talking about the centrality
of the turning of the soul, which flows from paideia, which flows from that formation of
attention, it flows from that cultivation of a critical self, it flows from the maturation
of a compassionate soul. Attention, cultivation, maturation generating
the turning of the soul. We started this class linking Du Bois to the
legacy of Athens. Not just a paideia, but also the parrhesia,
the fearless speech, the intimidated speech, the free speech that is unafraid. We've seen that at work, but dipped within
the doings and sufferings of Black people because we've seen the ways in which Black
people in the United States, yes, flowing from those slave ships, yes, on the way to
the slave auctions, yes, on the way to the plantations, yes, dealing with 244 years of
white supremacist slavery and another 90 years of American terrorism called Jim Crow and
Jane Crow. But they are deeply tied into some of the
emancipatory possibilities of paideia. That's why this course is very much a course
in the humanities. Yes, we've deal with sociology. Yes, we deal with political theory and so
forth. But in the end, it's about spiritual striving;
it's about existential orientation, and the turning of one's fundamental orientation. The turning of the soul is not the same as
a cognitive shift. It's not just a matter about the cerebral
activity. It's not just a matter of the intellect. It's a matter of your whole being, being so
unsettled and shaken and quivering such that you have to look for a different way of being
in the world. You can't come to terms with the Black musical
tradition unless you understand its deep connection to paideia. It's not fundamentally about entertainment. It's not fundamentally about stimulation. It's not fundamentally about titillation. It's about touching you at the deepest level
of your being in the short move you have from mama's womb to tomb. Before the worms get you, what kind of human
being are you going to be? That's in part what Sorrow Songs, that's the
existential register that we have been talking about throughout the course that is inseparable,
yes, from the economic and modes of production; inseparable, yes, from the civic and social;
yes, inseparable from the ideological and the political. But we have been accenting what Du Bois accents,
which is spiritual strivings. What's true in terms of the legacy of Jerusalem? The fundamental stress on remembrance and
the gathering of the dismembered. We saw it in terms of the dignity of everyday
people in ordinary life. We saw it in the spreading of Hesed, the loving
kindness, to the vulnerable, the weak, the poor, no matter what color, class, nation,
sexual orientation, able or disabled, and so forth. Its unbelievable overflow of Hesed. In fact, there's a wonderful line in Sly & The
Family Stone’s song “I Want to Take You Higher” when Larry Graham said, “I'm loving,
loving, over loving.” Over loving, and finding not just joy but
overjoy in Stevie Wonder's song “Overjoy.” Ian spreading Hesed over joy, over loving
and being in solidarity with the retched of the earth. What does it really mean to be in solidarity? The women dealing with patriarchal put down
and violence, and being dishonest. What does it mean to side with the trans folk
who are being spit on and rebuked? Do you find joy, that is what in part Du Bois
is getting at here. So let us disabuse ourselves of any notion
that when you're talking about music, you're not talking about one of the most elemental
and primal phenomenon of our species. To begin with very much what we saw in Du
Bois, as you wheeze the legacies of Athens and the legacies of Jerusalem, and the legacies
of European enlightenment or romanticism. The scientific temperament that we noted. The romantic preoccupation with individuality
not the same as individualism with personality. Not the same with personalism. The uniqueness of each and every one of us
being irreducible, irreproducible, no one like us. We are as unique as our fingerprints, and
when we go they'll never ever, ever, ever be anybody else like us. That comes from Imago Dei in part, but it
means to be made in the image of the highest power, distinctively you that will be picked
up by the great romantic poets, and how the settlerized, naturalized, no longer tied to
Christian talk or Judaic talk or Islamic talk about individuality. But then when you got to the Black tradition
what do we see, catastrophe, catastrophe denied, catastrophe overlooked, catastrophe pushed
aside. Write a constitution and act as if 22% of
the inhabitants of the 13 colonies are not enslaved human beings. Talk about justice in the 1890s as if Jim
Crow was not escalating, as if American terrorism not hunting folk down with folks, Black bodies
hanging from trees and so forth. Even great Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a book called
the Irony of American History. Reinhold Niebuhr is one of the greatest public
intellectualist of the 20th century. But what does he say in that early part? Well America has reached what we could call
rough justice. 1952 come on brother Reinhold you've got Jim
Crow in your mitts, go to Mississippi and see justice, go to Alabama and see. Well that's true I'm not really talking about,
I'm talking about the new white. Oh, I see you've rendered the catastrophe
invisible, the great Reinhold himself. Now sometimes we associate that with our right-winged
brothers and sisters. Whoa lo and behold we see it across the board. Reinhold Niebuhr, is no right winged brother
at all. He's exemplar of American liberalism of cohort
liberalism, same tendency to render it invisible. Act as if it doesn't exist as it were. And Du Bois in 1903 we saw say's gentle reader
you are going to have to come to terms with this catastrophe, and you ought to be glad
that in response of that catastrophe the dominate orientation of these Black people will be
from Frederick Douglas to Fannie Lou Hamer, will be from Harriet Tubman to Tony Morrison
and James Baldwin. Which is one of creative intelligence, critical
imagination, compassion and refusing to do to the oppressor what the oppressor has done
to them. That's a tremendous gift and in these days
and times it is no play thing at all, because if America misses out on that levin in its
loaf, that loaf gets stale, and begins to ossify and petrify. And when it gets stale and ossified and petrified
what happens, the catastrophe tends to bring out callousness. And when the callousness becomes hedramonic
and ubiquitous and spread across the board you end up with what, a Hobelar's war of all
against all. Everybody duking it out, the gangsterization
of the society. Can you imagine what Frederick Douglass could
have said in 1852, when he gave his famous July 4th speech. He said, “Oh you all been enslaving us all
this time and then denying, we gonna now enslave you. You are going to get exactly what we got." Nah, he refused to do it didn't he. Martin King refused to do it didn't he. Ella Baker refused to do it, A. Philip Randolph
refused to do it. You terrorize us, we want to fight against
terrorism across the board so that everybody can live free of terror, that's spiritual
and moral content. That's high ground as it were, that's what
Du Bois is getting at. And I want to submit to you that the Black
musical tradition sits at the very center of that spiritual maturity. We can just turn on Mahalia Jackson and listen
to her sing “Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen”, or we could just turn on some Marvin
Gaye of “What's Going On.” You got Marvin. Y'all want to hear a little Marvin. We're going to have one minute of brother
Marvin. Speaker 4: What song? Cornel West: What's Going On. Speaker 4: Oh What's Going On. Cornel West: Listen to the lyrics of this,
this is April 1971. Speaker 4: Oh there's an ad. Cornel West: Oh, they got an ad in there,
oh the marketing is everywhere. Can you hear it in the back? You got it all the way up? Where do I put it? Marvin Gaye: Mother, mother there's too many
of you crying. Cornel West: To many crying eventually moans
or better groans. Brother, brother, brother there's far too
many of. Marvin Gaye: Brother, brother, brother there's
far too many of you dying. Cornel West: Social death, civic deaths, a
fact of death. Marvin Gaye: You know we've got to find a
way. Cornel West: We've got to find a way. To bring some loving here today. Hey, hey, hey. Marvin Gaye: To bring some loving here today. Hey, hey, hey. Father, father we don't need to escalate. Cornel West: Father ... Don't want to escalate,
don't do the same thing to other's that they've done to you. Marvin Gaye: You see war is not the answer
for only love can conquer hate. Cornel West: War is not the answer. Only love will conquer hate. You know we've got to find a way to bring
some loving here today. Marvin Gaye: You know we've got to find a
way to bring some loving here today, oh, oh, oh. Cornel West: It's time to start moving here. Marvin Gaye: Oh, picket lines, sister, and
picket signs. Cornel West: Okay, that's good, that's good. Oh, that's Marvin right there. That's the tradition that we're talking about
y'all. And that's just one small force in that tradition. We have James Cleveland and we have Murphy
Love Coach, and we had Samuel Bradley, that sister Alexis taught me about we could have
Donnie Hathaway, of course Aretha ... Thank you so much my brother. Speaker 6: Your welcome. Cornel West: Definitely. You see the traditions always depended on
kind brothers to make sure the word gets out, and we appreciate it. Give it up for this brother he's been here
every week, every week. He's been here every week. I'm sorry that I broke that like that though,
man but I- Speaker 6: It's okay. Cornel West: I appreciate you putting that
in there because when we talk about the Sorrow Song. Where did my text go? When we talk about the Sorrow Songs, that's
when we're talking about that deep love of truth, and that deep love of beauty. And how does Du Bois begin? First time in the text the words now come
from Black people. We've seen before the epigraph always begins
with a towering European poet. And there's only one poet who Du Bois has
invoked twice. Did anybody notice that? Who is the poet that Du Bois invokes twice
in this text? In Of the Sons of Master and Man and then
also Of the Coming of John. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that radical abolitionist,
that towering poet, it should have actually been the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, but that's
all right. She was married to Robert, we talked about
marrying to Robert, led men without women and [inaudible 00:14:58] and none of that. The one he invokes twice who against her family,
her family business tied to slavery. She says, “I must engage in prophetic witness,
and I must engage in poetic expression.” But in this chapter he begins with Black voices
in the form of words. And we should note that we thank the publishers
of The Souls of Black Folk who were white brothers. Because Du Bois had planned to end the text
with “Of the Coming of John.” He had planned to end the text with “Of
the Coming of John.” They insisted, they begged, they pleaded,
“Please Du Bois tell that twice told tale.” Tell the story of The Souls of Black Folk
in musical form. Explain why you have used a particular Negro
melodies and Negro songs at the beginning of each chapter. And Du Bois said, “Oh, okay at the end let
me go and add it.”, the text would not be the same without this last chapter. The Sorrow Songs. What does he choose? Lay this body down. I walked through the church yard to lay this
body down. A book of the dead, a book for the living
dead. On intimate terms with forms of death. I know moonrise. I know star rise. I walk in the moonlight. I walk in the star light. I'll lie in the grave and stretch out my arms. I'll go to judgment in the evening of the
day and my soul and thy soul shall meet that day when I lay this body down. Now we've already seen in his eulogy with
his son, death is the only condition above the veil. Death is the kind of liberation, no more heartache,
no more heartbreak, no more sadness and sorrow, no more groans and moans. You are finally free, that's what death does. And when you're in a situation, a plight,
and a predicament where it looks as if every possible option leads towards a dead end,
you hit against the wall. Death itself can become something very desirable. Desirable. Now I don't know how many of you all have
felt that, but Du Bois says over and over again that he not only has no fear of death,
and he certainly does not as he notes he doesn't want to live forever, but he said there is
something that death has to offer. To get some distance from all this mess we
find ourselves in, in space and time. To no longer have to deal with all the insecurity
and anxiety and so forth and he sees that at work in the Negro spirituals. Where they talk about death as something that
they have an I thou relation with. And it's precisely because they have carried
around death inside of them, inside of their hearts and minds, and souls every day of their
life. We have seen going back to Plato himself that
paideia is about a learning how to die in order to learn how to live. That you'll never be able to live courageously
and compassionately with an awareness and an alertness without something dying in you
continuously. Therefore, any escape from death, any attempt
to hold death at arm’s length is always a sign of a spiritual infantile like condition. You don't want to grow up. You don't want to undergo maturation, you
don't want to confront the underside, and the knife side of your own life let alone
what's waiting for you. And then the spiritual itself wrestling Jacob. Somebody tell me about the 32nd chapter of
Genesis beginning with that 25th verse. What happens to Jacob in that chapter? Rustles in the midnight hour with the angel,
what is the angel, an angel of death. Hera Bloom says an angel of death, some scholars
say it's an angel of lord. We don't know, but he's wrestling with an
angel, and the angel say's what. We are going to wrestle until you are so wounded,
so bruised, so scarred and those wounds and bruises, and those scars will be transfigured
in the form of a blessing for you. You'll emerge with a new name. What's the new name for Jacob in the 32nd
chapter of Genesis? Somebody tell me. Speaker 7: Israel
Cornel West: Israel means what? God wrestler. Jacob emerges with a new name, he's got new
energy, he's got new orientation. He's undergone a certain kind of turning of
the soul. Not by going to college, not by reading classical
texts and of course we think that's a positive thing for each and every one of you. Periagoge comes in a lot of different forms. You can turn the soul in a lot of different
ways. It can be a falling in love, it could be a
falling out of love. It could be falling up to love, or down in
love. A lot of people think it's falling in love,
so it's going down, because love will humble you. If you are arrogant in love you are not really
in love at all you're just having fun for the moment. No, no this periagoge that Du Bois is talking
about from this particular spiritual. The wrestling of Jacob. Then the thing we're seeing throughout the
text, weary, tired, fatigued. How can any person, how can any people wrestle
with darkness without becoming weary, without becoming melancholic. Also tied to a millurism, by millurism I mean
a looking for, a yearning for betterment. A yearning for some possible improvement,
that's what this song is about. Look at that first line at Du Bois. They that walked in darkness sang songs in
the olden days, sorrow songs for they were weary at heart. And so before we start off reading this book
I said a phrase a haunting echo of these weird old songs in which the soul of the Black slaves
spoke to human beings. Ever since I was a child these songs have
stirred me strangely. They came out of the south unknown to me one
by one, and yet at once I knew them as of me and of mine. We know of course of him going back down to
Nashville, we know of him going way out in the country in gut bucket Jim Crow Tennessee. And he says what “Oh low and behold maybe
a serious analysis of the so-called Negro problem.”, which we know to be catastrophes
visited on Black people. Maybe an analysis of race relations those
are all the deodorized categories. The Negro problem, race relations. A lot of times on TV they just call it race. They don't want to call it racism, or white
supremacy. We're having a problem of race. Oh really what happened? Jamal got shot. Hey that doesn't sound like race in the abstract. That sounds like we need an inquiry, and a
serious trial to see why somebody got murdered or not. Let's get concrete. Let's keep it real. You can't even say keep it real these days
because that's been deodorized hasn't it. When we said keep it real in the 80s, that
meant something different to 2 Pac then it does to Chance the Rapper doesn't it, and
I like Chance he's from Chicago. He used to go to the same church with Asefik
all the time down in 59th Street southside. But that little Negro, he's a different kind
of Negro than 2 Pac. Different generation, different historical
moment. So we don't want to hear keep it real no more. How come it has been so commodified and so
marketized, and so commercialized it doesn't mean hardly anything else. You say keep it real, and you see Little Foot
walking around advertising for corporate America, with Nike and dat, dat, dat, oh please I thought
you were keeping it real. Who are you keeping it real for? What tradition you come out of? Ooh brother West how come you so harsh on
the young folk. Oh, cause I love him so, and I want them to
know that they that walked in darkness sang songs in the olden days, sorrow songs for
they were weary at heart. They weren't making a song to be number 1
on the billboard. They wasn't making a song in order to be some
market driven celebrity. They wasn't making a song for some kind financial
status. They were singing from the depths of their
soul trying to transfigure their pain and sorrow into an organized noise that could
empower somebody else. That's that kenosis that we started with the
first week, and what was kenosis. The self-emptying, giving it your all, starting
with a full cup and ending completely empty. So by the time you leave the stage, by the
time you finish talking, lecturing, speaking, by the time you hit, you win the football
game in the last quarter. This is not just a question of winning the
game, right. It was about did you give it your all, brother
River that's what it's about. No I didn't brother West I'm still fresh. No then you've got to go back out there. The game was over. Go back out there anyway. Be true to the tradition, not just about winning
no dang game. So what? We're talking about your life. This game was a prefiguration of the kind
of life you're going to live. Are you really going to go end of life's abyss. Are you really going to step out on nothing
and land on something. That's giving it your all. That's what you get. The best of the musicians, the best of the
artists, the best of the painters. That's what you get in the Martin Luther King,
Jr., sermon. That's what you get in Romare Bearden painting. That's the tradition that Du Bois is talking
about, and what does he say. He says “It's been neglected, it has been
and is half despised.” ... Y'all see it there in the chapter that
begins little of beauty has America, what page has little of beauty has America. Right there. Speaker 8: 536. Cornel West: So the top of 537 there. Speaker 8: No little America. Cornel West: But it has been neglected right
there the 2nd line. Dang, I hope my sweat doesn't mess up your
page. It has been neglected, it has been and is
half despised and above all it has been persistently mistaken and misunderstood, but non-withstanding
it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation, and the greatest gift
of the Negro people. Note the first section, singular spiritual
heritage of the nation. What does that mean? Why is it at the music becomes the singular
spiritual heritage of the nation? It's precisely because Black song which has
elective affinities, the songs of our precious indigenous brothers and sisters. The songs of brown folk were moving boarders. The songs of working people. Irish, Polish, Jewish, Catholics, they're
all on a continuum, but that Black music has had a disproportionate influence in shaping
the culture, the popular culture, the popular imagination of the whole nation. It's fundamentally about not just this kenosis
of self-emptying but it has a message. Namely, here is a people who have been hated
chronically and systematically for 400 years, and they're still singing songs trying to
convince the world to love and trying to teach them how to love by means of example. Cause you don't learn how to love by means
of argument, and I'm not against argument. If you really want to know how to love you
better open yourself and be willing to be crushed like a cockroach. At least that risk goes hand in hand with
giving your all, cause that's a dangerous thing, but it's the most beautiful thing in
the world. Nothing like it, you see. Who is willing to go that far, that's what
you get in Stevie Wonder's Love in the Need of Love. That's what you get, and Aretha Franklin,
that's what you get in the Gladys Knight. Not just entertainers, they are love warriors,
and they set the standard arete going back to the legacy of Athens. The highest level of spiritual excellence. Spiritual excellence. One can certainly argue that when you talk
about the history of legacies of white supremacy responding to legacies of white supremacy
that certainly music is probably been the most significant force in trying to open the
hearts and minds, and souls of Americans of all colors. Of all colors. Miles Davis on the trumpet, Mary Lou Williams
on the piano. John Coltrane A Love Supreme touches you at
the deepest level, and it opens you up. If you've been socializing in the white supremacists
forums and you listen to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and you say this man is moving
me musically, and artistically in a way I could not imagine. Maybe white supremacy is a lie, that's not
an argument, that's an experience. In Coltrane, it just signifies a whole host
of different artists in this regard, and the same is true on the Black side at times. Same is true on the Black side. You convince yourself oh my god these white
brothers and sisters have no possibility whatsoever. They're so locked in the white supremacists
forms that they never, ever, ever going to be open to my humanity whatsoever. Let me sit down and listen to a little of
Mary J. Mary J sing about some real love. Now for you all that's old school but that's
a new one for you now. I don't know when did Real Love come out,
about 1990. Sarah: 90s. Cornel West: 1990s so you all were hardly
even born, uh. When were you born sister Chris. Speaker 9: 1997. Cornel West: Awe this born 1990 before, after
Mary J came out. Ooh my God. But the real love is in place before you got
here and was waiting for you when you came out your mama's womb. And, it's still here now. Is that right. The same tradition that caravan of love that
we were talking about. That's what Du Bois is getting at. Then he goes on to do what. He said let's acknowledge you all, he says
it begins in Africa. These Negros are an African people, because
if you keep track with their music you're going to hear the neutrality of the drums. There is no such thing as a drum solo I and
of itself isolated in the history of Europe, even given a roll of beats. The drums are fundamental. Why did they ban the drum when the Africans
got here, because it tended to empower them, it tended to enable them. Ban the drums, so what do you do, you just
learn how to clap on beat. Oh you've got to remind some white brothers
and sisters sometimes, we're clapping on the beat now. No I'm just kidding out here. It's something you can learn. Some of the great drummers are white drummers
like Buddy Rich. There's a whole lot of white brothers and
sister who got to learn how to be on 1. I'm just kidding. Africa, backdrop not just for Black people
but for who, the species as a whole. It's where we all come from. No such thing as Homosapiens without African
origins. Then he goes on to say what happens when you
get this cultural hybridity, this cross cultural fertilization. So low and behold you begin to singing in
the language of Shakespeare, and Milton and Coleridge in English rather than your African
language. You still Black, you're still an African person
but now you're dreaming and singing in a very different language. Americanization is setting in. Then low and behold other Americans who are
themselves Black begin zero in on what's going on behind the veil. What did Du Bois say in the chapter on Alexander
Crummell that helped him survive and thrive. That full power behind the veil. Get on that Black side and see what sources
of power. Not so much economic and political, remains
oppressed and exploited, but spiritual power, cultural power. The Sorrow Songs become fundamental lens through
which you view yourself, the nation, the world, modernity. What it means to be human. Those are the three levels we started the
first week with. What it means to be human, learning how to
die, to forge with power. What it means to be modern, critical intelligence
resistance against forms of dogma. What it means to be American, trying to forge
multi-racial democracy in the face of forms of domination, and what it means to be Black. Creating conditions for the possibility of
holding at arm’s length self-hatred, and self-doubt, and self-flagellation. Putting yourself down, hitting yourself rhetorically
and physically. Self-mutilation, cutting yourself up and always
trying to fit, or wearing a mask in such way that you end up forgetting what your face
looks like. That you're so preoccupied with being something
else in the eyes of a white normative gaze that you lose sight of the sources of your
own power that allows you to call that gaze into question. That is what is at stake in this music, and
Du Bois goes on and on and says “What is the voice of exile.”, yes it is. With exilic people finding home primarily
in the language and the music. Du Bois goes on to talk about the various
ways in which fatalism could possibly set in. Jesus is dead and God's gone forever. In the Christian world the death of Jesus
is not just the abstract death of a God, section 125 of Nietzsche's The Gay Science. This is not just a matter of a new conception
of human beings predicated on the conception of God. The death of Jesus is full scale nihilism
lived concretized in the inability to love yourself. If you suffer from the condition of inability
to love yourself, you have already trumped all possibilities of experiencing the highest
levels of being alive. I'm not just talking about political oppression
here. We're not just talking about economic exploitation
here. We're talking about something deeply fragile
and precious, and existential. Look at the section of death. Of death the Negro showed little fear. Where are we on that page? You see it there? Of death the Negro. Page? Speaker 10: 543. Cornel West: 543. Of death the Negro showed little fear but
talked of it familiarly, and even fondly, as simply a crossing of the waters. Perhaps who knows, there's that perhaps again. Favorite word of Samuel Beckett. I know you are all tired of me talking about
Samuel Beckett. You can't teach a course on Afro-American
studies without talking about Samuel Beckett, because he understands what it is to wrestle
with despair and dread, and relative failure, and collapse. Our dear sister wrote that wonderful dissertation
on the Irish and the Black folk. I know I have embarrassed you 3 times, one
more last. Absolutely. Latter days transfigured his fatalism, and
amid the dust and dirt. The toilet sang dust, dust and ashes fly over
my grave but the lord shall bear my spirit home. This is of course within the context of the
Christian narratives. The high moment in this text that begins through
all the sorrow songs which is on page ... through all the sorrow songs must be on that. Speaker 8: 544. Cornel West: 544. Through all the sorrow, the sorrow songs there
breathes a hope of faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often
to triumphant and calm confidence. Sometimes a faith in life, sometimes a faith
in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But which ever it is the meaning is always
clear that sometime, somewhere human being will judge human beings by their souls and
not by their skin. This is 1903, you see Martin King echoed this
formulation in 1963, August. Is such a hope justified, or is it an illusion,
is it a pipe dream. Do the Sorrow Songs ring true. It's a fundamental question. It leaves it dangling. Then the weary traveler. Weary traveler guards himself. Will America rend the veil. Will the prison go free. Free, free as a sunshine trickling down the
morning into these high windows of mine. Free as yonder fresh young voices welling
up to me from the caverns of brick or mortar below. Swelling with song, instinct with life, tremulous
tremble and darkening bass. My children, little children are singing to
the sunshine and thus they sing let us cheer the weary traveler. These are kids, these are the children, but
the weariness has already set into the precious souls of the children. That same weariness we saw at the very beginning. Cheer the weary traveler, let us cheer the
weary traveler along the heavenly way. And the traveler guards himself and sets his
face toward the morning, and goes his way. Jacob like, trying to hope that the possibility
of transforming the wounds into a new name, a new possibility. Then the afterthought. We saw it in the beginning of the forethought. We talked about Prometheus a little bit in
that forethought. He who ends up providing certain resources
on the one hand, but also opening up new possibilities for unbelievable darkness on the other. Associated with fire but also bound, tied,
and in some sense imprisoned. Then his brother Epimethius, the afterthought. We had a wonderful conversation on this on
the way up. Sister Alexis writing this wonderful text
on Prometheus, it's going to be powerful. Laying a lot of this out. What happens when hope itself becomes nothing
but comforts danger that allures you and seduces you. That leads toward self-destruction because
it leaves you unprotected. That's Thucydides in the Melian Dialogues
in the Pela Persian Wars. Be suspicious of hope. Pandora who was married to Epimethius. What's in your jar, what's in that box? Do you want that hope to come out? Maybe this hope itself is the very thing that
you think empowers you but leaves you unprotected, naked. Very different than the legacy of Jerusalem
where hope becomes a virtue. Hope is not a virtue in the legacies of Athens,
and especially not in that genius historian called Thucydides. Now when you move from the Sorrow Songs to
the Blues, that's a shift. Du Bois is not talking about the Blues. Du Bois feared the Blues. He kept the Blues at arm’s length. You're not talking about Jazz, this is about
freedom not hope. The Blues is talking about persistence. Every morning Billie Holiday gets up she says
Good Morning what. Who is she singing to? Heartache. Y'all don't want to hear me sing that now. Me and Billie can do a serious duet on that. Good Morning Heartache. Constant intimate companion. Cyclical just like the Greek conception of
history and time. No breakthrough. The only thing that sustains you is not hope
but your persistence in singing a song of despair so that despair does not become the
last word. The only thing you fight with that despair
is your song. As soon as the song is over you're back into
an overwhelming darkness. Not socially, and politically only but for
Billie it was also psychic. It was existential, it was wrestling with
the drink, wrestling with the drugs. Wrestling with the brothers who couldn't deal
with a free woman, and a free Black woman. I've made that point before. I mean under patriarchy good God almighty
it's hard to find a brother of any color who can really come to terms with a free woman. And Billie was a free woman which meant she
was going to have trouble finding some high quality folk. Men or woman actually, she was bisexual, either
way you see. In her song that Thucydides like suspicion
of hope, different then the Judaic, Christian, Islamic lifting up of hope. That's a very important discussion, especially
nowadays. Especially nowadays not just after Charlottesville,
but especially nowadays after moving out what 17 years into the 21st century. What do we tell each other about Du Bois raising
that question? Is the hope justified? Do the Sorrow Songs ring true or is it as
2 Pac said “So, so, so many tears.”, and its enough tears to fill up every nook and
cranny of the world. Here my cry oh God the reader. Vouch safe that this my book for not still
born into the world wilderness. He's a voice in the wilderness, prophetic
tradition. And he's seen freedom born for Black people
1865. What happens with the Black coats, freedom
stillborn. Born but can't grow, develop, mature or rested. Let their spring gentle one from out his lead
vigor of thought. There's Socratic moment, critical intelligence. And thoughtful deed, exemplary action, there's
the courage, there's the fortitude. To reap the harvest wonderful. Then in parentheses let the ears of a guilty
people. He's talking about a nation that condone the
enslavement of folk. For 80 years under the U.S. Constitution,
244 years since the arrival. This is what we say to our neo-confederate
brothers and sisters down south. I'm just fighting for my heritage. They were courageous soldiers. Yes they were courageous you have a right
to your heritage. Do you think that you can be proud of a heritage
whose aim was to keep a slice of humanity enslaved in perpetuity. Is that the heritage that you're after? Be honest about it, be candid about it. Let's talk about it. I'm not talking about you and your mom, I'm
talking about your vision and your argument, and what you are saying. All of us have heritages. Germans have a heritage of Beethoven and [Chileran
Cont 00:46:03], but they also have heritage of Hitler. You can bring critique to bear on Hitler by
invoking Beethoven. That Ode to Joy, in that last section of that
magnificent 9th Symphony. So when you talk about the German heritage,
let us be clear about which part of it you're talking about. Let us be honest about what slice you are
aligning yourself with. Oh, we're French we have a great heritage. We've been secular for long time. We have a universalistic conception of citizenship
and so forth. Well let's look at Algeria, and the Algerians
alongside Diderot one of the greatest freedom fighters of the Enlightenment Period. Anti-empire, anti-slavery, anti-patriarchy,
anti of exploitation of workers. Diderot very different than the defenders
of a French occupied Algeria. Which part of the French heritage are you
talking about? We can even go to Canada. I know we got some Canadians in here. We love our Canadians brothers and sisters. Rich tradition you have, indeed you have a
rich tradition and very different from the Americans. California has roughly the same population
as Canada. More Californians kill each other with knives
than Canadians kill each other with anything. It's a different culture isn't it. We Americans tied to violence for a number
of different reasons. Canadians much more mild-mannered. Of course, I'm being very stereotypical here,
but I think I'm still telling the truth. Much more mild mannered civility. Oh yes the indigenous people, first nations. What do you think about those European Canadians? We'll tell you a different story about them. Thank you very much. Which part of your Canadian tradition are
you talking about, the best or the worst. So it is Du Bois says, "A guilty people tingle
with truth. 70 million sigh for the righteousness which
exalts nations in this dreary day. When human brotherhood is mockery and the
snare." It is 114 years ago. Thus, in thy good time may infinite reason
turn the tangle straight, and these crooked marks on a fragile leaf be not indeed, the
end. Life, history, incomplete, unfinished, open
ended. 1903 it's still going on. Which legacies will we be a part of? Which parts of the tradition will we choose
to be? And no one is ever part of any one tradition. There is always a matter of variety of different
traditions because we are multi-tradition species. We have a variety of different heritages that
we choose from, but we must choose. And when Du Bois ends Dusk of Dawn 37 years
later talking about revolution. What is the relation between the turning of
the soul, and the democratic revolution that Du Bois is talking about in this chapter? In the democratic revolution that Du Bois
is talking about. I want to turn briefly here, because we're
going to save Good Times for dialogue with the students, because you all have been so
wonderful in terms of your presentations. Turn to page ... I want to find this. This is a wonderful moment in Du Bois' text. Page 762. 762. He said “I've been talking about race all
this time. I've been talking about white supremacy all
this time.”, but “Oh” he says “The poverty of massive people in an age when an
abundance of goods, and technical efficiency of work seemed able to provide a sufficiency
for all persons.” He said “To hit this issue of poverty makes
the assumption long disputed.”, and we should underline long disputed. Defenders of the capacity of ordinary peoples
in the history of paideia itself is very, very weak and feeble. It's hard to find it among the Greeks. Plato's genius among genius, anti-democratic
to core. Ordinary people simply do not have the capacity
and ability to govern themselves. They're overwhelmed by ignorance and passion,
and therefore only the philosopher kings can do it. Only the philosopher kings can do it. What about the musicians, Plato? No, because what is it about musicians. To be a great musician you don't have to go
to Dartmouth, or Harvard, or Julliard. You hang out with other great musicians. So when you get ordinary people's voices often
times accented it. Thank God Louie Armstrong didn't go to Julliard. Miles Davis did go to Julliard, didn't he. He dropped out after a few weeks. And he said Charlie Parker, I'm learning more
from Charlie Parker than I am Professor McGillicuddy. He's a mentor. Ordinary people's capacity. What does Du Bois say? That out of the downtrodden massive people
ability and character sufficient to do this task effectively could and would be found. I believe this democratic dictum passionately. It was in fact the foundation stone of my
fight for Black folk, it explained me. Now that's Du Bois at his most naked. His most naked. He doesn't get more self-revelatory than this. He doesn't get more cognetic than this in
terms of emptying himself. The core of who I am is to make a Pascalian
wager on the capacity of ordinary people. To control the conditions of their lives,
economically, politically, socially, spiritually. And if I'm wrong, if Plato's right. If Aristotle is right, if John Lock is right. Thomas Jefferson doesn't believe in the capacity
of ordinary people all the way down to workers with no property. All the way down to women across the board. All the way down with Black folk and others. He believed in the capacity of the governed
who have access to a certain conception of citizenship. Yes, he's a democrat, he's a highly selective
democrat. Highly selective. Du Bois is now we democratize. Even the highly selective democrat all the
way down to the everyday people and the masses. That's a serious discussion. John Dewey and Walter Lippmann had it in the
1920s. Public opinion, Lippmann ordinary people don't
have the capacity let the experts run things. They're only ones who know. Dewey says no, the experts have their own
group interests. Their own professional orientation, their
own blind spots. Dewey writes a book called The Public and
It's Problems. Responding to public opinion same dialogue. Du Bois is on Dewey's side, or maybe we should
say Dewey was on Du Bois' side or their all in the same. I had been brought up with the democratic
idea of the voice, but here we do not have democracy. We have oligarchs, oligarchs based on monopoly
and income. And this oligarchy was as determined to deny
democracy and industry as it had once been determined to deny democracy in voting or
choice of officials. This is democracy all the way down. And the crucial role then of paideia, deep
education, democratic education, to shape and mold the capacities of people to think
for themselves and shatter change of conformity and complacency. That's what Du Bois is about. But then he goes on and I'm going to end with
this. He say's “All the organizations I align
myself with, NAACP, they made it difficult for me to tell the truth that I did pay 7.65,
you see.” He said I'm tied to a certain liberalism. He says “I look back now I seen the crusade
waged by the NAACP from 1910 to 1930.” He's of course the editor of the Crisis newspaper. One of the finest efforts of liberalism to
achieve human emancipation. He's not denying liberalism as a force for
good vis-à-vis. Certain unaccountable elite, be they kings
and queens. In that case liberalism is revolutionary and
subversive. Or be they presidents elected by limited electric. He said “But the essential difficulty of
this liberalism was not to realize the fundamental change brought about by the worldwide organization
of work and trade, and commerce.” Too often the liberalism was tied patriarchy,
class hierarchy, homophobic, trans phobic, trashing of fellow human beings. Too often it was tied to empire. Too often it was tied to white supremacy. Not always, you did always have courageous
liberals who tried to break out, but when they broke out they find themselves often
times breaking out beyond liberalism itself. How does he end this particular text. Low and behold. Page 783. 783. When he's pushed out of the NAACP. He says “I have not always been right, but
I have been sincere.” I've been true to myself. I have followed kenosis. I've been fearless in my convictions. Then when it ends and he writes the creed
that the Lane Lock refuses to publish in 1936. He says “It's clear I've never had a concern
about my cat.” Bottom of page 791. I taught and worked at Atlanta University
for 1200 a year doing 13 effective and happy years. I never once asked for an increase. I went to New York for the salary offered,
only asked for an increase there when an efficient new white secretary was hired at a wage above
mine. This is the great Du Bois. The highest level of academic excellence. The only time he asked for an increase is
when they bring in a white brother who starts off making more than Du Bois. Du Bois said “Well I believe in fairness.” I then asked for equal salary. Brother you should have asked for double,
shit. You're lucky I wasn't around to give advice. I did not want the shadow of racial discrimination
to creep into our salary schedule. I realize now this rather specious monetary
independence mainly cost me dearly. Land me in time upon some convenience street
corner with a tin cup. For I saved nearly nothing and lost my life
insurance in the depression. So he's broke as the Ten Commandments financially. At this age, he was in late 60s, early 70s. I'm especially glad for the divine gift of
laughter. It's made the human and lovable despite its
pain and wrong. I'm glad that the partial puritanism of my
upbringing has never made me afraid of life. I've tried to meet life face to face. I loved the fight and I realized that love
is God and work is God's prophet, and that God's ministers are age and deaf. If life has its pains and evils, its bitter
disappointments, but I like a good novel in a helpful lens of day there's infinite joy. The echo infinite reason 1903, infinite joy
37 years later, in seeing the world. We should note that seeing. You see that's not a look, it's not a glance. Like the preface of Joseph Conrad novel. Learn how to see. Henry James says I want to really be able
to see her minutically, intellectually, existentially. Look unflinchingly on the world. John Ruskin talks about this with great brisk
capacity. They actually see it for what it is. To have the courage to come to terms with
what it is. In seeing the world the most interesting of
continued stories unfold even though one myth is. The End. We saw how The Souls of Black Folk, the end
is incomplete. Du Bois at this age says I know I'm going
to miss it. I'm going to be long gone, but maybe somewhere
down the line even the summer 2017 at Dartmouth there's going to be a whole lot of sophomores
who say Du Bois you may not always be right or wrong, but we're going to wrestle with
your text the way Jacob wrestled with the angel, and see what kind of legacy we associate
ourselves to. We're not going to imitate you Du Bois, we
know that you’re a man of your age. We know you're a child of your time, the way
we are human beings of our own particular historical moment. Even in the context of the university and
college that we find ourselves, we can keep Du Bois wrestling alive. We can keep the possibilities of the turning
of the soul tied to that paideia, rooted in that legacy of Jerusalem in which the most
vulnerable are highlighted, but also singing those grand songs. That allows us to see the catastrophe and
in the midst of that catastrophe to muster the courage and fortitude to think critically
for ourselves. To have some deep love for those catching
hell including ourselves, and then maybe to pass it on to next generation.
