Chad L. Williams — The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War
When:
Monday, May 08, 2023 6:00p -
7:30p
Monday, May 08, 2023 6:00p -
7:30p
Where:
Boston Public Library: Rabb Lecture Hall
700 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
History, Lectures & Conferences, Social Good
Event website:
https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/640f7a31f693333600018c66
Join us in-person or virtually to hear the dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I—and a new understanding of that era and of one of the great twentieth-century writers. Chad L. Williams. Following the conversation, which will be moderated by Kendra Field, Associate Professor at Tufts University, there will be time for Q&A with both virtual and in-person audiences.
The content of the program will run from 6 to 7 PM. For in-person attendees, there will be an author signing starting at 7 PM in the Connector Space just outside the Rabb Lecture Hall facilitated by Posman Books. Online bookselling will be made possible via Porter Square Books.
To attend in-person, please register on this Eventbrite page.
To attend via Zoom webinar, please visit this link to register.
About the book
When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. For more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. His book, however, remained unfinished. Drawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Bois’s unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells the surprising story of this unpublished book, bringing new insight into Du Bois’s struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war. The Wounded World offers a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history.
About the author
Chad L. Williams is the Samuel J. and Augusta Spector Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University. He is the author of the award-winning book Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era and the coeditor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence. His writings and op-eds have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Time, and The Conversation.
About the moderator
Moderator Kendra Field is Associate Professor of History, Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora; and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University. She is author of Growing Up with the Country: Family, Race, and Nation after the Civil War, which traces her ancestors' migratory lives between the Civil War and the Great Migration.
This program is part of the American Inspiration Series from American Ancestors/NEHGS and presented in partnership with the Boston Public Library, the Museum of African American History, and the GBH Forum Network.
