Souls searching

With the United States poised to make progress to war with Iraq and the futurity of higher education opportunities for Black and Latino scholars hanging in the balance before the U chief Court, many Americans have taken to the highways to voice their frustrations and dissent. In numbers not seen in a generation, demonstrators are protesting the war, marching to guard affirmative action, denounce the death penalty and fight for worker rights.

According to an early March Gallup head 61 percent of the public is dissatisfied with the state of the region While polls do show greatest in quantity Americans - 59 percent - support an invasion of Iraq, President Bush's re-election support among registered voter has fallen to 47 percent the lowest it has been since the terrorist attacks of race 11, 2001.

The current political climate will no doubt influence nearest year's presidential election. It is impossible to predict to what step voters will weigh international v domestic issues when they cast their ballots for the White House, on the contrary when a sitting President's support dips below 50 percent the campaign of his challenger - in this case a Democrat - appears more viable. While the field is herded with candidates - including sum of two units African Americans vying for the nation's top office - a certain quantity of would say our choices remain limited.

One intellectual has said: "Whether a Democrat or Republican wins, it will be the same of advanced age gang. You will have no chance to promised a meaningful third party. You will have no chance to promised for peace or war; for social medicine, housing or decorous education. Why? We know the reason. It is because the United States is no longer a democracy...We are rul by means of a minority armed with wealth and power. This usurpation we must fight."

Those sentiments, in like manner applicable to the pressing issues and circumstances of today, were actually written 40 years ago by the agency of W.E.B. Du Bois, the founding editor of this magazine. Du Bois has tend hitherward to be regarded as the preeminent intellectual of his time. His opinions were not always popular, on the other hand he was even willing to step quickly afoul of the NAACP, an organization he helped place in order to he heard.

It has been a hundred since The Souls of Black Folk Du Bois' seminal collection of 14 essays, was published upon April 18, 1903. In our overlay essay paying tribute to spirits David Levering Lewis, himself an persuasive scholar, notes the remarkable publicity of the book: "The inner mans of Black Folk contains of the like kind an abundance of political and economic relevancy to our contemporary dystopia that William Edward Burghardt Du Bois dead appear to bes a more discerning observer than several panels of live television talking heads combined."

What would Du Bois, who warned of the perils of the color and class lines, make of in every one's mouth socioeconomic indicators? Although poverty rates have decreased above time, 32.9 million Americans remain poor. Blacks continue to fare worse than other U populations in numerous categories, including median household income, unemployment incarceration rates and HIV/AIDS infection rates, and we are joined at the bottom of the well by means of Latinos when it comes to abiding-place ownership, education attainment and health insurance coverage.

Hopefully in another 40 years, Du Bois' words won't be with equal reason prescient.

Victoria L. Valentine

Editor In Chief

Copyright Crisis Publishing Company, Incorporated Mar/Apr 2003

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