# data[].attributes.body
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/07/the-surprising-religious-backstory-of-black-panthers-wakanda/?utm_term=.e099b7980632

# data[].attributes.body
Wakanda Forever presentation
R M Bissell, PhD (2018)

# data[].attributes.body
Sun Ra (1972) sci-fi/jazz/Afrocentric-space travel

# data[].attributes.headline
Wakanda curriculum resources by Tessa Raser

# data[].attributes.subject
Wakanda curriculum resources by Tessa Raser

# data[].attributes.body
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19wRga_SppkMxLazphpLE4B9GGUtoufGHNSrSavEjXbs/mobilebasic

Women of Wakanda are the real revolutionaries:
https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/the-women-of-wakanda-are-the-real-revolutionaries

Education Weekly Blog on Wakanda Curriculum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Education Week - The Intersection: Culture and Race in Schools

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I was late to the game watching "Black Panther." Nearly a month after it opened, a friend of mine called me out for not having seen it, noting that "there are cultural conversations happening around this film, and until you watch it, you can't be a part of them."

She was, of course, right, and so a few days later I went to see it with a friend who works with me coaching first-year teachers. My expectations were already high, the hype was already real, and after I finally saw it, all I had to say is... WOW.

Beyond the fact that "Black Panther" is actually a fantastic film, the movie does an amazing job building a world that completely reimagines the narratives we often give communities of color, particularly the Black community, and how changing that mindset would affect the entire ecology of someone's life.

Often, society looks at communities of color and identifies them as, whether their fault or not, in need of salvation. This deficit mindset around the communities we serve often means that, even when we do try and serve our students, we end up focusing on all the problems that they face instead of the strong values their cultures may have already brought to the table.

"Black Panther" shows us a world that shatters the deficit lens and reimagines one in which black culture and black people are not only empowered but normalizes the concept in the process. Instead of the token young black girl into science, the film that looks at Shuri, the Wakandan Princess with a penchant for technology and design, and says, "Well, of course a young black woman is killing the science and technology game. Why wouldn't she be?" It does not force her to be humble about her brilliance as a way to justify it, as , it just allows us to imagine a world where we accept that young women of color can be powerful, smart, and in charge simply because that's the way they are.

And isn't that powerful?

That's why the fact that teachers are bringing Wakanda to the classroom is one of the many things that makes me excited to be an educator today. Tess Raser and her " Wakanda Curriculum" exemplify the kind of work we need to be doing. We, as teachers, are at our best when we ask ourselves not just how to make our work in the classroom engaging for students, but how to ensure that work is culturally responsive, actively relevant, and helping kids envision a world in which their identity, voice, and cultures are valued and important, simply because that's the truth.

We must consistently be asking ourselves what we can do to help better connect with and prepare our students for the world we are imagining for them. We are coming into a time in which kids are having more and more conversations about race, class, culture, gender, and sexuality. While these conversations can be difficult, they are also immensely important. We need to create curriculums and practices that support this movement towards social discourse around difficult truths. We need to create classrooms that force all of us to reimagine a world stripped of the social hierarchies that have oppressed us for too long.

This is the work, and as I watched groups of badass women charging forward on screen, I was only inspired to race head-on into our own battlefield. Now is the time to meet that challenge.

Find Christina online:

: @biblio_phile

: /christinawrites

: //christinatorres.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Wakanda Curriculum' Is Exactly What Teachers Should Be Teaching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I was late to the game watching "Black Panther." Nearly a month after it opened, a friend of mine called me out for not having seen it, noting that "there are cultural conversations happening around this film, and until you watch it, you can't be a part of them."

# data[].attributes.headline
Template for designing your own Wakanda (draft)

# data[].attributes.subject
Template for designing your own Wakanda (draft)

# data[].attributes.body
using Universal Design for Learning framework and restorative/reflective practices (cite Bissell 2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.headline
Draft resources from PoCC presentation (Bissell 2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
Draft resources from PoCC presentation (Bissell 2018)

# data[].attributes.body
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YK-b78GB7xtF3fiLnGioDg8O-V5LbP33lWWI7W_FieA/edit

RESOURCES:

New Perspectives on Black Intellectual History (Blain et al 2018)

Dispatches from the Ebony Tower (Marable, 2001)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.body
Africa today and the future:
https://www.ted.com/talks/charles_robertson_africa_s_next_boom
https://www.ted.com/talks/ngozi_okonjo_iweala_on_doing_business_in_africa
https://www.ted.com/talks/george_ayittey_on_cheetahs_vs_hippos

https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_turok_makes_his_ted_prize_wish?language=en

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The leaders who ruined Africa, and the generation who can fix it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Before he hit eighteen, Fred Swaniker had lived in Ghana, Gambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. What he learned from a childhood across Africa was that while good leaders can’t make much of a difference in societies with strong institutions, in countries with weak structures, leaders could make or break a country. In a passionate talk the entrepreneur and TED Fellow looks at different generations of African leaders and imagines how to develop the leadership of the future.

# data[].attributes.headline
The making of the Black Panther Movie (2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
The making of the Black Panther Movie (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ryan Coogler: Why I Needed to Make ‘Black Panther’

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How ‘Black Panther’ director Ryan Coogler’s trip to Africa was the heart and soul of his record-breaking blockbuster – and changed his life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Negro Academy (1897-1924) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An Online Reference Guide to African American History

# data[].attributes.headline
African Diaspora Archaeological & art history research and resources

# data[].attributes.subject
African Diaspora Archaeological & art history research and resources

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.societyofblackarchaeologists.com/

http://www.societyofblackarchaeologists.com/resources-for-researchers.html

https://www.nps.gov/afbg/index.htm

https://detroitisafrotopia.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/flash-of-the-spirit-african-and-afro-american-art-and-philosophy.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Ashanti
https://blackpast.org/gah/ashanti-empire-asante-kingdom-18th-late-19th-century

Yoruba values of humanhood:
http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu13se/uu13se0f.htm

Queen Nzinga
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pwmn_2/hd_pwmn_2.htm
Igbo Women's War (1929) curriculum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1929, thousands of southeastern Nigerian women rose up in protest against British government agents in events known as the Women's War. In response to economic grievances, colonial exploitation, and political disenfranchisement, these women used precolonial forms of protest to demand governmental reforms. But what, specifically, triggered the Women's War? In this lesson, students read a document by a British historian and an interview with one of the rebels to answer the question: What happened at the start of the Women's War of 1929?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women's War of 1929 | Stanford History Education Group

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1929, thousands of southeastern Nigerian women rose up in protest against British government agents in events known as the Women's War. In response to economic grievances, colonial exploitation, and political disenfranchisement, these women used precolonial forms of protest to demand governmental reforms. But what, specifically, triggered the Women's War?

# data[].attributes.body
"The Negro Problem"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Marxist History: USA: Black Panther Party

Every member of the Black Panther Party throughout this country of racist America must abide by these rules as functional members of this party. Central Committee members, Central Staffs, and Local Staffs, including all captains subordinated to either national, state, and local leadership of the Black Panther Party will enforce these rules. Length of suspension or other disciplinary action necessary for violation of these rules will depend on national decisions by national, state or state area, and local committees and staffs where said rule or rules of the Black Panther Party were violated. Every member of the party must know these verbatim by heart. And apply them daily. Each member must report any violation of these rules to their leadership or they are counter-revolutionary and are also subjected to suspension by the Black Panther Party. The rules are:

1. No party member can have narcotics or weed in his possession while doing party work.

2. Any part member found shooting narcotics will be expelled from this party.

3. No party member can be drunk while doing daily party work.

4. No party member will violate rules relating to office work, general meetings of the Black Panther Party, and meetings of the Black Panther Party anywhere.

5. No party member will use, point, or fire a weapon of any kind unnecessarily or accidentally at anyone.

6. No party member can join any other army force, other than the Black Liberation Army.

7. No party member can have a weapon in his possession while drunk or loaded off narcotics or weed.

8. No party member will commit any crimes against other party members or black people at all, and cannot steal or take from the people, not even a needle or a piece of thread.

9. When arrested Black Panther members will give only name, address, and will sign nothing. Legal first aid must be understood by all Party members.

10. The Ten-Point Program and platform of the Black Panther Party must be known and understood by each Party member.

11. Party Communications must be National and Local.

12. The 10-10-10-program should be known by all members and also understood by all members.

13. All Finance officers will operate under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance.

14. Each person will submit a report of daily work.

15. Each Sub-Section Leaders, Section Leaders, and Lieutenants, Captains must submit Daily reports of work.

16. All Panthers must learn to operate and service weapons correctly.

17. All Leaders who expel a member must submit this information to the Editor of the Newspaper, so that it will be published in the paper and will be known by all chapters and branches.

18. Political Education Classes are mandatory for general membership.

19. Only office personnel assigned to respective offices each day should be there. All others are to sell papers and do Political work out in the community, including Captain, Section Leaders, etc.

20. Communications--all chapters must submit weekly reports in writing to the National Headquarters.

21. All Branches must implement First Aid and/or Medical Cadres.

22. All Chapters, Branches, and components of the Black Panther Party must submit a monthly Financial Report to the Ministry of Finance, and also the Central Committee.

23. Everyone in a leadership position must read no less than two hours per day to keep abreast of the changing political situation.

24. No chapter or branch shall accept grants, poverty funds, money or any other aid from any government agency without contacting the National Headquarters.

25. All chapters must adhere to the policy and the ideology laid down by the Central Committee of the Black Panther Party.

26. All Branches must submit weekly reports in writing to their respective Chapters.

8 Points of Attention

1. Speak politely.

2. Pay fairly for what you buy.

3. Return everything you borrow.

4. Pay for anything you damage.

5. Do not hit or swear at people.

6. Do not damage property or crops of the poor, oppressed masses.

7. Do not take liberties with women.

8. If we ever have to take captives do not ill-treat them.

3 Main Rules of Discipline

1. Obey orders in all your actions.

2. Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the poor and oppressed masses.

3. Turn in everything captured from the attacking enemy.

Written: Unknown Date
Transcription/Markup: unknown/B. Baggins
Online Version: USA History Archive (marxists.org) 2001

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Marxist History: USA: Black Panther Party Every member of the Black Panther Party throughout this country of racist America must abide by these rules as functional members of this party. Central Committee members, Central Staffs, and Local Staffs, including all captains subordinated to either national, state, and local leadership of the Black Panther Party will enforce these rules.

# data[].attributes.body
CRL James

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
J. Meyer

(December 1948)

Speech at Socialist Workers Party conference in 1948.
Originally published in Fourth International, December 1948.
Republished in Scott McLemee (ed.), C.L.R. James on the "Negro Question", Jackson (Miss.) 1996, pp. 138-147.
Transcribed by Daniel Gaido.
Marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for ETOL.

The decay of capitalism on a world scale, the rise of the CIO in the United States, and the struggle of the Negro people, have precipitated a tremendous battle for the minds of the Negro people and for the minds of the population in the US as a whole over the Negro question. During the last few years certain sections of the bourgeoisie, recognising the importance of this question have made a powerful theoretical demonstration of their position, which has appeared in The American Dilemma by Gunnar Myrdal, a publication that took a quarter of a million dollars to produce. Certain sections of the sentimental petty bourgeoisie have produced their spokesmen, one of whom is Lillian Smith. That has produced some very strange fruit, which however has resulted in a book which has sold some half a million copies over the last year or two. The Negro petty bourgeoisie, radical and concerned with communism, has also made its bid in the person of Richard Wright, whose books have sold over a million copies. When books on such a controversial question as the Negro question reach the stage of selling half a million copies it means that they have left the sphere of literature and have now reached the sphere of politics.

We can compare what we have to say that is new by comparing it to previous positions on the Negro question in the socialist movement. The proletariat, as we know, must lead the struggles of all the oppressed and all those who are persecuted by capitalism. But this has been interpreted in the past - and by some very good socialists too - in the following sense: the independent struggles of the Negro people have not got much more than an episodic value and as a matter of fact, can constitute a great danger not only to the Negroes themselves, but to the organised labour movement. The real leadership of the Negro struggle must rest in the hands of organised labour and of the Marxist party. Without that the Negro struggle is not only weak, but is likely to cause difficulties for the Negroes and dangers to organised labour. This, as I say, is the position held by many socialists in the past. Some great socialists in the United States have been associated with this attitude.

We, on the other had, say something entirely different.

We say, number one, that the Negro struggle, the independent Negro struggle, has a vitality and a validity of its own; that it has deep historic roots in the past of America and in present struggles; it has an organic political perspective, along which it is travelling, to one degree or another, and everything shows that at the present time it is travelling with great speed and vigour.

We say, number two, that this independent Negro movement is able to intervene with terrific force upon the general social and political life of the nation, despite the fact that it is waged under the banner of democratic rights, and is not led necessarily either by the organised labour movement or the Marxist party.

We say, number three, and this is the most important, that it is able to exercise a powerful influence upon the revolutionary proletariat, that it has got a great contribution to make to the development of the proletariat in the United States, and that it is in itself a constituent part of the struggle for socialism.

In this way we challenge directly any attempt to subordinate or to push to the rear the social and political significance of the independent Negro struggle for democratic rights. That is our position. It was the position of Lenin thirty years ago. It was the position of Trotsky which he fought for during many years. It has been concretised by the general class struggle in the United States, and the tremendous struggles of the Negro people. It has been sharpened and refined by political controversy in our movement, and best of all it has had the benefit of three or four years of practical application in the Negro struggle and in the class struggle by the Socialist Workers' Party during the past few years.

Now if this position has reached the stage where we can put it forward in the shape that we propose, that means that to understand it should be by now simpler than before; and by merely observing the Negro question, the Negro people, rather, the struggles they have carried on, their ideas, we are able to see the roots of this position in a way that was difficult to see ten or even fifteen years ago. The Negro people, we say, on the basis of their own experiences, approach the conclusions of Marxism. And I will have briefly to illustrate this as has been shown in the Resolution.

First of all, on the question of imperialist war. The Negro people do not believe that the last two wars and the one that may overtake us, are a result of the need to struggle for democracy, for freedom of the persecuted peoples by the American bourgeoisie. They cannot believe that.

On the question of the state, what Negro, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line, believes that the bourgeois state is a state above all classes, serving the needs of all the people? They may not formulate their belief in Marxist terms, but their experience drives them to reject this shibboleth of bourgeois democracy.

On the question of what is called the democratic process, the Negroes do not believe that grievances, difficulties of sections of the population, are solved by discussions, by voting, by telegrams to Congress, by what is known as the " American way".

Finally, on the question of political action, the American bourgeoisie preaches that Providence in its divine wisdom has decreed that there should be two political parties in the United States, not one, not three, not four, just two: and also in its kindness, Providence has shown that these two parties should be one, the Democratic Party and the other, the Republican, to last from now until the end of time.

That is being challenged by increasing numbers of people in the United States. But the Negroes more than ever have shown - and any knowledge of their press and their activities tells us that they are willing to make the break completely with that conception.

As Bolsheviks we are jealous, not only theoretically but practically, of the primary role of the organised labour movement in all fundamental struggles against capitalism. That is why for many years in the past this position on the Negro question has had some difficulty in finding itself thoroughly accepted, particularly in the revolutionary movement, because there is this difficulty - what is the relation between this movement and the primary role of the proletariat - particularly because so many Negroes, and most disciplined, hardened, trained, highly developed sections of the Negroes, are today in the organised labour movement.

First the Negro struggles in the South are not merely a question of struggles of Negroes, important as those are. It is a question of the reorganisation of the whole agricultural system in the United States, and therefore a matter for the proletarian revolution and the reorganisation of society on socialist foundations.

Secondly, we say in the South that although the embryonic unity of whites and Negroes in the labour movement may seem small and there are difficulties in the unions, yet such is the decay of Southern society and such the fundamental significance of the proletariat, particularly when organised in labour unions, that this small movement is bound to play the decisive part in the revolutionary struggles that are inevitable.

Thirdly, there are one and a quarter million Negroes, at least, in the organised labour movement.

On these fundamental positions we do not move one inch. Not only do we not move, we strengthen them. But there still remains in question: what is the relationship of the independent Negro mass movement to the organised labour movement? And here we come immediately to what has been and will be a very puzzling feature unless we have our basic position clear.

Those who believed that the Negro question is in reality, purely and simply, or to a decisive extent, merely a class question, pointed with glee to the tremendous growth of the Negro personnel in the organised labour movement. It grew in a few years from three hundred thousand to one million; it is now one and a half million. But to their surprise, instead of this lessening and weakening the struggle of the independent Negro movement, the more the Negroes went into the labour movement, the more capitalism incorporated them into industry, the more they were accepted in the union movement. It is during that period, since 1940, that the independent mass movement has broken out with a force greater than it has ever shown before.

That is the problem that we have to face, that we have to grasp. We cannot move forward and we cannot explain ourselves unless we have it clearly. And I know there is difficulty with it. I intend to spend some time on it, because if that is settled, all is settled. The other difficulties are incidental. If, however, this one is not clear, then we shall continually be facing difficulties which we shall doubtless solve in time.

Now Lenin has handled this problem and in the Resolution we have quoted him. He says that the dialectic of history is such that small independent nations, small nationalities, which are powerless - get the word, please - powerless, in the struggle against imperialism nevertheless can act as one of the ferments, one of the bacilli, which can bring on to the scene the real power against imperialism - the socialist proletariat.

Let me repeat it please. Small groups, nations, nationalities, themselves powerless against imperialism, nevertheless can act as one of the ferments, one of the bacilli which will bring on to the scene the real fundamental force against capitalism - the socialist proletariat.

In other words, as so often happens from the Marxist point of view from the point of view of the dialectic, this question of the leadership is very complicated.

What Lenin is saying is that although the fundamental force is the proletariat, although these groups are powerless, although the proletariat has got to lead them, it does not by any means follow that they cannot do anything until the proletariat actually comes forward to lead them. He says exactly the opposite is the case.

They, by their agitation, resistance and the political developments that they can initiate, can be the means whereby the proletariat is brought on to the scene.

Not always, and every time, not the sole means, but one of the means. That is what we have to get clear.

Now it is very well to see it from the point of view of Marxism which developed these ideas upon the basis of European and Oriental experiences. Lenin and Trotsky applied this principle to the Negro question in the United States. What we have to do is to make it concrete, and one of the best means of doing so is to dig into the history of the Negro people in the United States, and to see the relationship that has developed between them and revolutionary elements in past revolutionary struggles.

For us the centre must be the Civil War in the United States and I intend briefly now to make some sharp conclusions and see if they can help us arrive at a clearer perspective. Not for historical knowledge, but to watch the movement as it develops before us, helping us to arrive at a clearer perspective as to this difficult relationship between the independent Negro movement and the revolutionary proletariat. The Civil War was a conflict between the revolutionary bourgeoisie and the Southern plantocracy. That we know. That conflict was inevitable.

But for twenty to twenty-five years before the Civil War actually broke out, the masses of the Negroes in the South, through the underground railroad, through revolts, as Aptheker has told us, and by the tremendous support and impetus that they gave to the revolutionary elements among the Abolitionists, absolutely prevented the reactionary bourgeoisie - (revolutionary later) - absolutely prevented the bourgeoisie and the plantocracy from coming to terms as they wanted to do.

In 1850 these two made a great attempt at a compromise. What broke that compromise? It was the Fugitive Slave Act. They could prevent everything else for the time being, but they could not prevent the slaves from coming, and the revolutionaries in the North from assisting them. So that we find that here in the history of the United States such is the situation of the masses of the Negro people and their readiness to revolt at the slightest opportunity, that as far back as the Civil War, in relation to the American bourgeoisie, they formed a force which initiated and stimulated and acted as a ferment.

That is point number one.

Point number two. The Civil War takes its course as it is bound to do. Many Negroes and their leaders make an attempt to get incorporated into the Republican Party and to get their cause embraced by the bourgeoisie. And what happens? The bourgeoisie refuses. It doesn't want to have Negroes emancipated.

Point number three. As the struggle develops, such is the situation of the Negroes in the United States, that the emancipation of the slaves becomes an absolute necessity, politically, organisationally and from a military point of view.

The Negroes are incorporated into the battle against the South. Not only are they incorporated here, but later they are incorporated also into the military government which smashes down the remnants of resistance in the Southern states.

But, when this is done, the Negroes are deserted by the bourgeoisie, and there falls upon them a very terrible repression.

That is the course of development in the central episode of American history.

Now if it is so in the Civil War, we have the right to look to see what happened in the War of Independence. It is likely - it is not always certain - but it is likely that we shall see there some anticipations of the logical development which appeared in the Civil War. They are there.

The Negroes begin by demanding their rights. They say if you are asking that the British free you, then we should have our rights, and furthermore, slavery should be abolished. The American bourgeoisie didn't react very well to that. The Negroes insisted - those Negroes who were in the North - insisted that they should be allowed to join the Army of Independence. They were refused.

But later Washington found that it was imperative to have them, and four thousand of them fought among the thirty thousand soldiers of Washington. They gained certain rights after independence was achieved. Then sections of the bourgeoisie who were with them deserted them. And the Negro movement collapsed.

We see exactly the same thing but more intensified in the Populist movement. There was a powerful movement of one and one quarter of a million Negroes in the South (The Southern Tenant Farmers' Association). They joined the Populist movement and were in the extreme left wing of this movement, when Populism was discussing whether it should go on with the Democratic Party or make the campaign as a third party. The Negroes voted for the third party and for all the most radical planks in the platform.

They fought with the Populist movement. But when Populism was defeated, there fell upon the Negroes between 1896 and about 1910 the desperate, legalised repression and persecution of the Southern states.

Some of us think it is fairly clear that the Garvey movement came and looked to Africa because there was no proletarian movement in the United States to give it a lead, to do for this great eruption of the Negroes what the Civil War and the Populist movement had done for the insurgent Negroes of those days.

And now what can we see today? Today the Negroes in the United States are organised as never before. There are more than half a million in the NAACP, and in addition to that, there are all sorts of Negro groups and organisations - the churches in particular - every single one of which is dominated by the idea that each organisation must in some manner or another contribute to the emancipation of the Negroes from capitalist humiliation and from capitalist oppression. So that the independent Negro movement that we see today and which we see growing before our eyes is nothing strange. It is nothing new. It is something that has always appeared in the American movement at the first sign of social crisis.

It represents a climax to the Negro movements that we have seen in the past. From what we have seen in the past, we would expect it to have its head turned towards the labour movement. And not only from a historical point of view but today concrete experience tells us that the masses of the Negro people today look upon the CIO with a respect and consideration that they give to no other social or political force in the country. To anyone who knows the Negro people, who reads their press - and I am not speaking here specially of the Negro workers - if you watch the Negro petty bourgeoisie-reactionary, reformist types as some of them are in all their propaganda, in all their agitation - whenever they are in any difficulties, you can see them leaning toward the labour movement. As for the masses of Negroes, they are increasingly pro-labour every day. So that it is not only Marxist ideas; it is not only a question of Bolshevik-Marxist analysis. It is not only a question of the history of Negroes in the US.

The actual concrete facts before us show us, and anyone who wants to see, this important conclusion, that the Negro movement logically and historically and concretely is headed for the proletariat. That is the road it has always taken in the past, the road to the revolutionary forces. Today the proletariat is that force. And if these ideas that we have traced in American revolutionary crises have shown some power in the past, such is the state of the class struggle today, such the antagonisms between bourgeoisie and proletariat, such, too, the impetus of the Negro movement toward the revolutionary forces, which we have traced in the past, is stronger today than ever before. So that we can look upon this Negro movement not only for what it has been and what it has been able to do - we are able to know as Marxists by our own theory and our examination of American history that it is headed for the proletarian movement, that it must go there. There is nowhere else for it to go.

And further we can see that if it doesn't go there, the difficulties that the Negroes have suffered in the past when they were deserted by the revolutionary forces, those will be ten, one hundred, ten thousand times as great as in the past. The independent Negro movement, which is boiling and moving, must find its way to the proletariat. If the proletariat is not able to support it, the repression of past times when the revolutionary forces failed the Negroes will be infinitely, repeat infinitely, more terrible today.

Therefore our consideration of the independent Negro movement does not lessen the significance of the proletarian - the essentially proletarian-leadership. Not at all. It includes it. We are able to see that the mere existence of the CIO, its mere existence, despite the fakery of the labour leadership on the Negro question, as on all other questions, is a protection and a stimulus to the Negroes.

We are able to see and I will show in a minute that the Negroes are able by their activity to draw the revolutionary elements and more powerful elements in the proletariat to their side. We are coming to that. But we have to draw and emphasise again and again this important conclusion. If - and we have to take these theoretical questions into consideration - if the proletariat is defeated, if the CIO is destroyed, then there will fall upon the Negro people in the US such a repression, such persecution, comparable to nothing that they have seen in the past. We have seen in Germany and elsewhere the barbarism that capitalism is capable of in its death agony. The Negro people in the US offer a similar opportunity to the American bourgeoisie. The American bourgeoisie have shown their understanding of the opportunity the Negro question gives them to disrupt and to attempt to corrupt and destroy the labour movement.

But the development of capitalism itself has not only given the independent Negro movement this fundamental and sharp relation with the proletariat. It has created Negro proletarians and placed them as proletarians in what were once the most oppressed and exploited masses. But in auto, steel, and coal, for example, these proletarians have now become the vanguard of the workers' struggle and have brought a substantial number of Negroes to a position of primacy in the struggle against capitalism. The backwardness and humiliation of the Negroes that shoved them into these industries is the very thing which today is bringing them forward, and they are in the very vanguard of the proletarian movement from the very nature of the proletarian struggle itself. Now, how does this complicated interrelationship, the Leninist interrelationship express itself? Henry Ford could write a very good thesis on that if he were so inclined.

The Negroes in the Ford plant were incorporated by Ford: first of all he wanted them for the hard, rough work. I am also informed by the comrades from Detroit he was very anxious to play a paternalistic role with the Negro petty bourgeoisie. He wanted to show them that he was not the person that these people said he was - look! he was giving Negroes opportunities in his plant.

Number three, he was able thus to create divisions between whites and Negroes that allowed him to pursue his anti-union, reactionary way.

What has happened within the last few years that is changed? The mass of the Negroes in the River Rouge plant, I am told, are one of the most powerful sections of the Detroit proletariat. They are leaders in the proletarian struggle, not the stooges Ford intended them to be.

Not only that, they act as leaders not only in the labour movement as a whole but in the Negro community. It is what they say that is decisive there. Which is very sad for Henry. And the Negro petty bourgeois have followed the proletariat. They are now going along with the labour movement: they have left Ford too. It is said that he has recognised it at last and that he is not going to employ any more Negroes. He thinks he will do better with women. But they will disappoint him too ...

Let us not forget that in the Negro people, there sleep and are now awakening passions of a violence exceeding, perhaps, as far as these things can be compared, anything among the tremendous forces that capitalism has created. Anyone who knows them, who knows their history, is able to talk to them intimately, watches them at their own theatres, watches them at their dances, watches them in their churches, reads their press with a discerning eye, must recognise that although their social force may not be able to compare with the social force of a corresponding number of organised workers, the hatred of bourgeois society and the readiness to destroy it when the opportunity should present itself, rests among them to a degree greater than in any other section of the population in the United States.

Last updated on 19.7.2011

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Speech at Socialist Workers Party conference in 1948. Originally published in Fourth International, December 1948. Republished in Scott McLemee (ed.), C.L.R. James on the "Negro Question", Jackson (Miss.) 1996, pp. 138-147. Transcribed by Daniel Gaido. Marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for ETOL.

# data[].attributes.body
WEB DuBois- data analysis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Later that year, in November of 1900, Du Bois wrote " The American Negro at Paris" for The American Monthly Review of Reviews which acts as a report of the exhibition as well as a summary of the events in Paris. "The history of the Negro is illustrated by charts and photographs; there is, for instance, a series of striking models of the progress of the colored people, beginning with the homeless freedman and ending with the modern brick schoolhouse and its teachers. There are charts of the increase of Negro population, the routes of the African slave-trade, the progress of emancipation, and the decreasing illiteracy."

Let's take a look at the charts. Here Du Bois explores education data:

The above vertical bar chart shows us a staggering 2479.5% increase in the enrollment of Negro children in school, beginning before the Civil War and ending a few years before the exhibition.

The chart begins at near-zero in 1860 as laws across the South forbade slaves to learn to read or write and made it a crime for others to teach them. During the Civil War, as the armies of the north swept through the south, the northern forces had to respond to the massive numbers of former slaves who escaped or were suddenly freed. It was decided that s chools should be opened to prepare the growing ranks of free people. On July 23, 1863, the first school for freed people was established in North Carolina.

While it's obvious to see the massive progress overall, the biggest eye-opener on the chart above is the 602% jump from 1870 to 1878. The cause was undoubtedly the creation of The Freedmen's Bureau at the end of the Civil War. The Freedmen's Bureau was a vast, rapidly-moving agency of early Reconstruction, assisting Freedmen in the South in many ways but most particularly by providing education. In just 5 years the group established more than 1000 schools. The bureau also was instrumental in founding such historically black colleges as Howard University in Washington, D.C., Fisk University in Nashville, TN, and Hampton University in Hampton, VA.

Likewise, as the above chart shows us, the jump from near total illiteracy in 1860 (three years before the Emancipation Proclamation) to only 50% illiteracy in 1900 feels like amazing progress. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell the whole story, as the White illiteracy rate during the same period was 6.2% and total US illiteracy was 10.7%. Certainly access to education was the key factor to the massive reduction, but the realities of the time are stark. The finality of the 1-word title speaks volumes.

In 2017 the amazing data journalist Mona Chalabi remarks, "... even as late as , illiteracy among black Americans was still four times higher than it was for white Americans." She then goes on to brilliantly update Du Bois' charts with current data while trying to remain as faithful as possible to the originals. Her strong analysis of Du Bois' work is well worth your time and her ability to re-contextualize his work with current data shows how profound American inequality remains today.

Aesthetically speaking, the chart above, "Illiteracy", is extremely novel. It represents comparative and sequential values both on the X and Y axis. While slightly more difficult to initially read, its black and white lines create a visual tension that draws the viewer in. By plotting each axis to meet in the middle, he presents a slope of corresponding points, effectively mixing the data and chart marks into a single visualization.

In the next chapter of this series, I'll return to this work to discuss an amazing development I found while researching it. I don't want to spoil the surprise just yet as that is another amazing story to be told.

Like other charts in the exhibition, this chart makes a direct comparison of the condition of American Negroes to several sovereign European countries. As you can plainly see from his blood-red highlight, the illiteracy rate sits in the middle of the group. One infers the surprise Du Bois himself felt when he discovered the similarities when he writes "[Negro] illiteracy is less than that of Russia, and only equal to that of Hungary"

By making the comparison of these illiteracy rates, Du Bois directly confronts the stereotype of the typical American Negro as an ignorant slave. The data shows they are comparable to the same class as a European. This was a bold gesture by 19th century standards for an African-American to present on the world stage when voices of color were noticeably absent. By presenting the statistical comparison Du Bois creates a shockingly effective argument that also sidesteps prejudice.

Many times in data visualization the numbers might be left off the chart entirely as they are in the chart above.

In his great 2013 book " Data Visualization, A Handbook for Data Driven Design" Andy Kirk breaks the reading of any chart into three stages: Perceiving, Interpreting, and finally Comprehending. The first step, perceiving, is where I think most of Du Bois' charts really succeed, as they are so strong visually and leave an immediate impression. Du Bois clearly understands the language of visualization. He expertly delineates only what is exactly needed in order to move his narrative along. Which is to say "Are we really so different than you?"

Graphically bold but not as immediately impactful, the above chart speaks to the need to show an overall positive message. Du Bois accentuates the positive trend by displaying the 39% rate of increase in all Negro children in schools as three stacked bars and only labeling the rate of increase. The remaining 42.71% of Negro children not in schools in 1896 are not omitted, but displayed as a black box; hidden in plain sight.

Yet this chart is actually inaccurate. Du Bois distorts the visualization by truncating the 1876 and 1886 bars to appear shorter than 1896 to exaggerate the trend. As each stacked bar represents a total of 100% they should all be the same height. This was something Du Bois was clearly aware of but opted to distort the progress in an effort to add to the overall positive message of the exhibit.

While doing my research I regularly skipped over the above chart as it's less dynamic than many of the others. I had even started to see it as maybe a work in progress, or even incomplete - but I think I was wrong. I believe the space at the top of the chart was left intentionally blank. I think it is ghost data.

Unlike the previous "Proportion of Total Negro Children" chart where children not in school are represented by a black box, Negro teachers were so scarce, so under-educated, and so overwhelmed, that Du Bois lacked sufficient data and represented them as simply "missing".

In 1911 Du Bois published The Negro Common School in association with his students at Atlanta University. Compiled over a 6-year period, this report explores Negro education issues on a national level as well as 17 individual states. While there are many records of Negro and Freedmen schools across the US, the data collected specifically on teachers is vague at best. In the open pages of the report he elaborates " by the census of 1890 over 25,000 colored teachers were reported, and in their hands practically the whole work of the public school system for Negroes rests. There has not hitherto been sufficient recognition of the immense labor and sacrifice involved in giving the colored race teachers of their own blood in a single generation. "

On the next page in the report, Du Bois lists the actual numbers. According to the 1890 census, the total number of Negro teachers in 1887 was 15,815 of a total African-American population of 7,470,040 or 0.0002% of the population. By any estimate that's a fraction of what was needed.

A decade later in 1920, Loretta Funke, in the " The Journal of Negro History" writes of the shocking ratios of children to teachers in the page clipping to the left. She later goes on to recount the crude conditions present in 1909: " There were no desks and only a small fragment of a blackboard in one corner. The teacher showed signs of having very little education himself and used no methods whatsoever in teaching. There was only one whole book for the entire reading class. "

To underscore the steady progress in spite of horrible conditions, Du Bois shows four growing vertically aligned bubbles to represent the 31% increase in Negro teachers in Georgia in 11 years. Since the bottom bubble is the darkest, it attracts our eye first and weighs the chart down. The focus is therefore not the maturing color sequence, but the darkest bubble at the bottom of the page; implying other heavier circles to come. By ending the chart in 1897, one can imagine a Parisian attendee asking the question, " What is the current number of teachers now, Professor Du Bois? "

In 1911, Du Bois ends The Negro Common School with a terse but amazing statement: " The white schools are bad. The Negro schools are worse. The South is still poor, and worse than that, it is, to a vast degree ignorant. Race antagonism can only be stopped with intelligence."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Data Journalism in the study of W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Negro Problem" (Part 2)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Later that year, in November of 1900, Du Bois wrote " The American Negro at Paris" for The American Monthly Review of Reviews which acts as a report of the exhibition as well as a summary of the events in Paris.