Scholars have often viewed Du Bois as a Eurocentric thinker concerned with Black people yet inhibited by his Eurocentric method from a thorough study of them. This essay shows the opposite. Du Bois clearly sought new methods and philosophical foundations for studying Black humanity. His work is the earliest engagement with the philosophical and scientific assumptions and foundations of the White supremacist study of Black humanity. He seeks out through theory, philosophy, and empirical and historical studies ways to study Africans from the standpoint of being an African. In most respects, he achieved his goal. The author terms his achievement an epistemic rupture and revolutionary breakthrough in knowledge.
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Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Du Bois, W.E.B. (1968). The autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois. New York: International.
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Du Bois, W.E.B. (1986a). The conservation of races. In N. Huggins (Ed.), W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings (pp. 815-826). New York: Library of America. (Original work published 1897)
5.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1986b). Dusk of dawn: The autobiography of a race concept . In N. Huggins (Ed.), W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings (pp. 549-802). New York: Library of America. (Original work published 1940)
6.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1986c). Jefferson Davis as a representative of civilization . In N. Huggins (Ed.), W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings (pp. 811-814). New York: Library of America. (Original work published 1890)
7.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1986d). The souls of Black folk. In N. Huggins (Ed.), W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings (pp. 357-547). New York: Library of America. (Original work published 1903)
8.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1986e). The suppression of the African slave trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. In N. Huggins (Ed.), W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings (pp. 1-356). New York: Library of America. (Original work published 1896)
9.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1986f). Toussaint L'Ouverture. In E. J. Sundquist (Ed.), The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois reader (pp. 296-302). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1961)
10.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1987). John Brown. New York: International. (Original work published 1909)
11.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1990). Color and democracy: Colonies and peace. Millwood, NY: Kraus-Thomson. (Original work published 1945)
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Du Bois, W.E.B. (1992a). Black folk then and now. Millwood, NY: Krause-Thomson. (Original work published 1939)
13.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1992b). Black reconstruction in America, 1860-1880. New York: Atheneum. (Original work published 1935)
14.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1992c). The gift of Black folks: The Negroes in the making of America. Millwood, NY: Krause-Thomson . (Original work published 1924)
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Du Bois, W.E.B. (1992d). The world and Africa. New York: International. (Original work published 1947)
16.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1994). The African roots of the war. In D. L. Lewis (Ed.), W.E.B. Du Bois: A reader (pp. 642-651). New York: Henry Holt. (Original work published 1915)
17.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1995). The Philadelphia Negro: A social study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (Original work published 1899)
18.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1996). On The souls of Black folk. In E. J. Sundquist (Ed.), The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois reader (pp. 304-305). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1904)
19.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1997). To Herbert Aptheker: Commentary on History and Reality, Du Bois' own philosophical development. In H. Aptheker (Ed.), The correspondence of W.E.B Du Bois: Volume III, Selections, 1944-1963 (pp. 394-396). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. (Original work published 1956)
20.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (2000a). Sociology hesitant. In R. Judy (Ed.), Sociology hesitant: Thinking with W.E.B Du Bois (pp. 37-44). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Original work published 1905)
21.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (2001). The Negro. New York: Prometheus. (Original work published 1915)
22.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (2006). The study of the Negro problems. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 568, 13-27. (Original work published 1897)
23.
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Foucault, M. (1994). The order of things: An archaeology of human sciences . New York: Vintage Press.
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Gooding-Williams, R. (1991). Evading narrative myth, evading prophet pragmatism: Cornel West's The American Evasion of Philosophy. The Massachusetts Review, 32, 517-542.
26.
Gordon, L. (1995). Fanon and the crisis of European man: An essay on philosophy and the human sciences. New York: Routledge.
27.
Henry, P. (2005). Africana phenomenology. Unpublished manuscript.
28.
Judy, R. (2000). On W.E.B. Du Bois and hyperbolic thinking. In R. Judy (Ed.), Sociology hesitant: Thinking with W.E.B Du Bois (pp. 1-35). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
29.
Lemke, S. (2000). Berlin and boundaries: Sollen versus geschehen . In R. Judy (Ed.), Sociology hesitant: Thinking with W.E.B Du Bois (pp. 45-78). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
30.
Lewis, D.L. (1993). W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a race 1868-1919 . New York: Henry Holt.
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Lewis, D.L. (2000). W.E.B. Du Bois: The fight for equality in the American century, 1919-1963. New York: Henry Holt.
32.
Moses, W.J. (1978). The golden age of Black nationalism, 1850-1925. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Mudimbe, V.Y. (1988). The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy and the order of knowledge. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.
34.
Rampersad, A. (1990). The art and imagination of W.E.B. Du Bois. New York: Schocken. (Original work published 1976)
35.
Said, E. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage.
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Smedley, A. (1998). Race in North America: Origin and evolution of a worldview. New York: Westview .
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Spillers, H. (2003). The crisis of the Negro intellectual: A reconsideration . In H. Spillers (Ed.), Black, White and in color: Essays on American literature and culture (pp. 428-470). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
38.
West, C. (1999). Black strivings in a twilight civilization. In The Cornel West reader (pp. 87-118). New York: Basic Civitas Books.
39.
Zamir, S. (1995). Dark voices: W.E.B. Du Bois and American thought 1888-1903. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
