W. E. B. Du Bois: An Appeal to the World

Born in Massachusetts in 1868, W. E. B. Du Bois pursued undergraduate studies at Fisk University before transferring to Harvard, where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree and a PhD in history. Early on, as founder of the Niagara Movement, he championed the cause of blacks against racial discrimination. Du Bois was also one of the founders, in 1909, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Under his leadership, four Pan-African Congresses were held. Du Bois believed that blacks around the world should engage in a worldwide struggle to free themselves from oppression.

The immediate postwar years of 1946–1948 witnessed the growth of vibrant African American groups, seeking ways for their grievances to be addressed by the Truman Administration. In May 1946 the National Negro Congress took the first initiative when the historian Herbert Aptheker was employed to write a brief description (in the form of a petition) of the political, social, and economic oppression African Americans faced domestically, in the hope that the United Nations would address the petition. The petition was dismissed on the ground that the United Nations lacked the authority to act in U.S. domestic affairs and could not accept petitions from nonstate actors.

Du Bois, who was then the director of special research for the NAACP, made his own attempt to petition the UN General Assembly. In doing so, he assembled a team of legal experts to each write a chapter for a book-length petition covering the historical and current grievances of African Americans, which he himself edited. By September 1947, the NAACP’s petition, formally titled An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress, was completed and approved by the NAACP board. Du Bois wrote the document introduction.

In his groundbreaking introduction, Du Bois unequivocally outlines the ill treatment and oppression of blacks in America in detail and cites similar examples in other parts of the world. He emphasizes the hypocrisy of white America’s so-called ideals of politics, philanthropy, and religion. Du Bois sounds a note of warning, saying that America’s attitude could provoke a dangerous consequence in encouraging the aggression of smaller nations against their minorities. He states that these issues are not problems restricted to the United States but, indeed, are basic problems of humanity. One result of the appeal was President Harry Truman’s subsequent creation of the Committee on Civil Rights.