First of many "America's Best Kept Secret"

It seems that every time I begin to think about the politics of the United States, I am drawn back to my Senior Thesis, written in 2000 in order to obtain my degree in history from Olivet Nazarene University. For an entire year I pondered what I was to write about. I wasn’t your run of the mill history student, as I was more interested in the way that people thought, why they did what they did, and how that psychology drove forward human development. With that in mind I began to search for that morsel of delectable, historical musing that would keep me interested for the next year of research and development towards the right to obtain that much coveted BA in history.

After some reflection, one question kept coming back over and over again. Why was the women’s movement abandoned by W.E.B. Dubois at a time when there could have been advancement for all people in America? What was his motivation given his leading role in as a social scientist? This question came to mind a few years earlier as I was doing research for a literary analysis of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, by G.B. Shaw. My curiosity was piqued and it never really left me. The question led me to a man that would gain my attention, and to this day, I ponder the role that W.E.B. DuBois played in the history of the Black man in a country that would betray not only him, but the Very people that he believed should have immediate integration without delay. I look forward to sharing with you my discourse on a man that shared for the first time with the world, the “Soul of Black Folks.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described it best, “history cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois because history has to reflect truth and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded disclosed the great dimensions of man.”