THE WOUNDED WORLD

A compelling account of the iconic civil rights leader’s effort to make sense of World War I and its meaning for racial equality and democracy.

Williams, a professor of African and African American studies at Brandeis and author of Torchbearers of Democracy, details W.E.B. Du Bois’ multidecade struggle to research, write, and publish a comprehensive history of African American participation in World War I. Lacking Du Bois’ fully realized history, Williams presents readers with the next best thing, incorporating his subject’s research, chapter outlines, and excerpts to provide a more accurate and expansive account of the war. The author drives the narrative forward by showing readers how the stakes of the project evolved over time. What began as a narrow history expanded to include documentation of the pervasive, overt, and institutionalized racism within the Army, the violence against Black citizens at home that exploded after the war, and the war’s origins in the European colonization of Africa. This was no mere academic exercise for Du Bois, who was haunted by his own role encouraging Black Americans to “close ranks” and set aside “personal grievances” in support of the war effort, anticipating that service would translate into a closer approximation of equality in the U.S. The history would be, in part, a means of ensuring that others did not make the same mistake. The Du Bois that emerges from this illuminating book is fully human. He fails, he dissembles, but he never stops fighting for justice and equality. His insights are as timely today as they were a century ago. In an otherwise thoughtful and nuanced book, the women in Du Bois’ life are less fully fleshed. Shirley Graham, Du Bois’ second wife and a writer, composer, and activist in her own right, merits a more thorough discussion. Nevertheless, Williams, like Du Bois before him, has done the important work of making sure that history is recorded and remembered.

A solid bulwark against efforts to simplify and sanitize history.