W. E. B. Du Bois: American Prophet (review)

In W. E. B. Du Bois: American Prophet, Edward Blum promises "a new analysis of Du Bois's place in American religious history," (7) and delivers that new analysis in groundbreaking fashion. The Du Bois portrayed in this beautifully written and convincingly argued book is one we have not seen before. Blum's portrayal of Du Bois reaches past his legacy as a radical leftist, political activist, writer, educator, and editor to see him essentially as "one of America's most profound religious thinkers" (7). Contending that historians and biographers have engaged in a "mythical construction" (11) of an "antireligious" Du Bois to serve the secular interests of the academy, Blum unveils Du Bois as an exponent of the Social Gospel and one who cast himself in the role of a modern prophet. This new and refreshing portrayal of Du Bois reveals him not only as one of America's greatest minds, but also one of its deepest souls.

The book is divided into five substantive chapters each representing the primary genres in which Du Bois worked, including autobiography, sociology, fiction, and social commentary. While Blum makes no attempt to make this a "religious biography in the conventional sense," (13) he concentrates on the religious themes embedded in Du Bois's work, noting that religion was an ubiquitous theme in Du Bois's writings and his stature as an "American prophet" was widely upheld (219). Each chapter is compelling, but Blum seems to be at his best in his discussion of Du Bois's classic, The Souls of Black Folk, and in his analysis of Du Bois's engagement with Christianity and Communism. Blum asserts that religion was at the center of Souls, and with the book Du Bois articulated "a new code of faith for the new century" (78). It was a prophetic text that sought to overturn systemic racism and to "tear apart the conflation of whiteness with godliness and, conversely, to connect blackness with the divine" (63). Blum deftly handles the issue of Du Bois's turn to Communism by noting that Du Bois saw spiritual value in the communist system. Indeed, as Blum notes, "as Du Bois turned to the political left, he routinely drew connections between Communism and Christianity" (193). Far from being evidence of his "atheism," therefore, Du Bois's turn to Communism demonstrated his conviction that Communism was the social reality of Christianity.

Edward Blum could have given more attention to Du Bois's male-gendered conception of church and religion. Du Bois's Christianity was a "manly Christianity." Also, there does seem to be an uncritical casting of "black" and "white" Christianity in contradistinction in Blum's analysis. The case is always more complicated. But the overall value of this insightful book eclipses these concerns. Blum has given Du Bois scholars, historians, scholars of religion, sociologists, literary scholars, and general readers an exciting new way to think about Du Bois. In doing so he has given us another way to understand how religion has functioned in American society and how it "informs the human condition" (11).