On the cusp of Black History Month and Women's History Month (and my first anniversary in TN), here's an artifact from the 1800s.

This year topic (Hair in 1920s America) for Black History Month was made possible through the dedicated work of these blogs.

@heytoyourmamanem

@blackhistoryalbum​

“Hayti is not all bad”: Some remarks on W.E.B. Du Bois’ August 1915 letter to Woodrow Wilson concerning the U.S. occupation of Haiti

On August 3rd 1915, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote a letter to Democratic President Woodrow Wilson regarding the United States latest policies in Haiti. Since August 28th of the same year, U.S. Marines had seized control of the Caribbean republic following the bloody murder of its president Guillaume Sam. As editor of the NAACP’s The Crisis and as a cosmopolitan black American very much interested in question relating to black individuals worldwide, Du Bois’ letter to the president does not seem all too surprising. In Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (2001) cultural historian Mary A. Renda notes that until 1920 with James Weldon Johnson NAACP (and Republican-backed) investigation in the Haitian situation, Du Bois was among the few African American critics who opposed the U.S. occupation of Haiti (Renda 2001, 19). Renda points that Du Bois and other like-minded individuals concerned by U.S. activities in Haiti “were among the very few exceptions that proved the rule of acquiescence to the wisdom of paternalism” (Renda 2001, 19). A closer look at Du Bois letter to Wilson, however, provides a much more nuanced picture of Du Bois early investment in the Haitian question.

Dubois’s dispatch to Wilson provides important insight into his understanding of the Haitian situation as it was unfolding in early August. Du Bois made clear his distress:

“over the situation in Hayti and the actions of the United States that I venture to address you. It seems to me that the United States in this case, even more than in the case of Mexico, owes it to herself and humanity to make her position absolutely clear. Hayti is not all bad. She as contributed something to human uplift and if she has a chance she can do more. She is almost the sole modern representative of the great race of men among the nations. It is not only our privilege as a nation to rescue her from her worst self, but this would be in a sense a solemn act of reparation on our part for the great wrongs inflicted by this land on the Negro race.” (Du Bois 1915, 1)

This passage is illustrative of Du Bois complex apprehension of the impending U.S. occupation. Many scholars have chosen to comment on those passages which supported a painting of Du Bois that made it him into a charismatic hero of black solidarity and black internationalism. Without refuting such evaluations –  as the letter clearly expresses Du Bois very true concern for the general well-being of Haitians and the need for the United States to work in collaboration with local authorities – Du Bois insistence that “Hayti is not all bad” (emphasis added) or that with proper guidance it could “do more” suggest that much like Booker T. Washington and other African American commentators, Du Bois was not yet against the overall goals of U.S. standing in Haiti.

In a series of recommendations to Wilson Dubois stressed that the U.S. could not hope to “help most effectively” unless it had “the cordial support of the Haytian people” (Du Bois 1915, 1). Yet, despite noteworthy proposals such as encouraging the State Department to “assure the people of Hayti that the United States” did not “wish to infringe in any way upon their integrity” (Du Bois 1915, 2) – hence a direct proposition to respect Haiti’s sovereignty even in such singular circumstance –   Du Bois still maintained that more conciliatory policies in Haiti would serve to better help establish “the moral hegemony of the United States in the Western hemisphere” (Du Bois 1915, 2). In the world of the Roosevelt Corollary, the Dollar Diplomacy and other U.S. recent diplomatic developments in the region, Du Bois comments on the United States “moral hegemony” (and the very usage of the word “hegemony”) weights significantly.

This reading of Du Bois’ letter to Wilson sharply contrast to that of historians such as Léon D. Pamphile who contends in Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope that Du Bois “protested Wilson’s policy” almost immediately as it unfolded in his letter to the president and in his editorial pieces for The Crisis to “rally African American sentiment against the intervention” (Pamphile 2001, 144).

While critics such as Renda and Pamphile have been correct in their assessment of Du Bois’ reluctance to a full-scale U.S. occupation of Haiti and his overall desire to create joints of connection between African American and Haitians (more specially in his work in The Crisis), they have not paid sufficient attention to how African Americans were also influenced by discourses of Haitian otherness. Situating almost any black American commentary on the U.S. occupation as testimonies of a natural disposition towards blind racialized solidarity, scholars have failed to comment and the more intricate messages embedded in Du Bois’ August 3rd 1915, letter to Wilson. Like Washington writing in the New York Age, Du Bois’ letter to Wilson makes evident that he was much more against a forceful occupation than against the idea of an occupation itself.

Du Bois’ letter could also be interpreted at another level, this time, serving much less as an actual critic of the State Department’s policies in Haiti but as a critic of its domestic treatment of African Americans. In the long passage quoted above, with his insistence that the United State makes its standing “absolutely clear” regarding its Haitian policy, Du Bois conveyed his opinion that such position would act as “a solemn act of reparation on our part for the great wrongs inflicted by this land on the Negro race” (Du Bois 1915, 1). In the concluding remark of his letter Du Bois also specified that:

The United States throughout the world [has] a reputation for studied unfairness toward black folk. The political party whose nominee you are is historically the party of Negro slavery. Is this not a particular opportune occasion to attack […] these assumptions […] ?” (Du Bois 1915, 2-3).

With these lines, Du Bois clearly linked Woodrow Wilson’s foreign politics in Haiti to the Democratic Party’s domestic agenda. As Woodrow Wilson was credited for being the U.S. President who introduced segregation at the State Department and the 1910s had thus far been especially turbulent with many race-motivated crimes notably lynching throughout the U.S. South (a crime which disproportionally affected African Americans), Du Bois’ remarks should be interpreted in that particular social context. In speaking of a “a solemn act of reparation” and the Haitian question providing a “particular opportune occasion to attack” the United States “reputation for studied unfairness toward black folk,” Du Bois is hinting to how Woodrow Wilson could utilise the current developments in Haiti to overturn the Democratic Department and indeed Wilson’s very own reputation and a bigoted Southern Democrat.  Foreign politics were thus asked to perform the task of restoring (if only very modestly) domestic image.

Overall, it does not seem that Wilson and his cabinet cared much for Du Bois’ letter and while the latter went on to attack the occupation more vehemently in his editorials for The Crisis, the occupation was allowed to continue almost unchallenged until 1920 with the beginning of distressing reports about Marine misconduct in Haiti.

Whereas scholars have often understood Du Bois’ August 3rd 1915, letter as a testimony of his strong opposition to the U.S. occupation of Haiti, as this brief post has attempted to suggest, they have not significantly considered the extent to which he supported overall U.S. expenditures in the Latin American and Caribbean basin in mid 1915 and they have not discussed in enough details the role of local politics in shaping Du Bois’ international vision. More research on this period may help bring to light Du Bois’ complex position. (Image -- W.E.B. Du Bois, 1918. Courtesy of: Wikimedia Commons.)

References

Pamphile, Leon D. Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton was born on May 13, 1925 in Norfolk, Virginia. She is known for her innovations in counseling and psychotherapy for Black patients, as well as for being both the first Black person and first woman to direct the United States Peace Corps. Payton attended Bennett College and graduated with a degree in Home Economics in 1945. She then studied Psychology at the University of Wisconsin where she received her master's in 1948. After graduating Payton worked as a psychologist at Livingston College and taught at Elizabeth City State Teachers College, both in North Carolina. In 1959 she finished a PhD program at Columbia University and became a faculty member at Howard University. She was director of Howard's Counseling Service from 1970 to 1977 and Dean of Counseling and Career Development from 1979 to 1995. It is in these jobs that she was able to develop better techniques for helping Black patients, such as the use of group therapy.

Payton first joined the Peace Corps in 1964 and was named Country Director for the Eastern Caribbean in 1966. She left the position in 1970 but came back to the Peace Corps in 1977 when former President Jimmy Carter appointed her as director. However, Payton was pushed out of this position after only one year. Her developments at Howard were adopted by the American Psychological Association, of which she was also a member. She served on many of the APA's committees such as the Task Force on the Psychology of Black Women, and the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Concerns Committee. Payton was awarded the APA's Distinguished Professional Contributions to Public Service Award in 1982 and the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology in 1997. Her legacy continues with the organization; the APA now offers the Carolyn Payton Early Career Award.

Sources

Joyceann Gray "Carolyn L. Robertson Payton (1925-2001)," Blackpast.org.

Librarian of Congress nominee Carla Diane Hayden was born on August 10, 1952 in Tallahassee, Florida. She earned a bachelor's degree from Roosevelt University in 1973 and began to work in the Chicago Public Library system. After earning both a master's and a doctorat in library science from the University of Chicago, Hayden taught the subject at the University of Pittsburgh. She later returned to Chicago where she worked as a children's librarian and became Deputy Commissioner and Chief Librarian of the Chicago Public Library System in 1991. In 1993, Hayden was appointed Director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library system in Baltimore, Maryland. If she is confirmed as Librarian of Congress, she will be the first woman, and first Black person to hold this position.

Hayden was president of the American Library Association from 2003-2004. She was also nominated, and confirmed, for a seat on the National Museum and Library Services Board. President Barack Obama nominated her for this position in 2010. She has won many awards such as Library Journal's Librarian of the Year (1995), Johns Hopkins University President's Medal, DuBois Circle of Baltimore's Legacy of Literacy Award.

Hayden uses her positions to advocate for everyone who uses the public library. As head of the Pratt system, she helmed initiatives for teens to gain homework help and career counseling. During the uprising in Baltimore in 2015, Hayden made sure that the libraries stayed open and offered use of their space for the distribution of food and other supplies. While she was President of the ALA, she fought legislation in the Patriot Act that would have allowed the FBI access to all citizen's library history. These permissions were rescinded. Hayden was also instrumental in combating legislation that blocked some internet content for library users. With her help, all libraries give visitors the option of unfiltered internet access.

Sources

Elizabeth Blair, "Obama Nominates Carla Hayden to Lead Library of Congress," NPR, February 24, 2016.

Office of the Press Secretary, "President Obama Announces His Intent to Nominate Carla D. Hayden as Librarian of Congress," The White House, January 24, 2016.

Lillyn Brown (1885–1969), ca. 1920

Photographer: Earl-Broady Studios, Schenectady, New York