An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

At the time of the URC, though, Du Bois was a liberal, “talented tenth
type” Black man, who believed that “the chief outcome of the Congress will
be human contact.” It was “not simply the physical meeting,” he reasoned,
but “the resultant spiritual contact which will run round the world.” 36 In this
meeting between the global North and South, with discussions of the
problems created by Western imperialism and exploitation, Du Bois felt that
this meeting would achieve what others hadn’t. It wouldn’t be northern
whites discussing the “Indian problem” or the “Negro problem,” without
the voices and representation of Black and Indigenous peoples. As Du Bois
remarked, “The voice of the oppressed alone can tell the real meaning of
oppression, and though the voice be tremulous, excited and even
incoherent, it must be listened to if the world would learn and know.” 37
Felix Adler invited Du Bois to serve as co-secretary of the US branch of
the URC. This is hardly surprising. Du Bois was the first Black American to
graduate with a PhD from Harvard University. He also participated in the
1899 Paris World Exposition. His exhibit, showcasing the progress of Black
Americans since slavery, won a gold medal. By 1910, after the publication
of the Philadelphia Negro (1899) and the Souls of Black Folk, as well as his
participation in the first Pan-African Congress (1900), Du Bois was one of
the most internationally recognized Black Americans. In a 1911 issue of the
NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, for which Du Bois served as editor, he
quoted an article published in the Gazette Times, which commented on the
then-upcoming URC, “The United States will be represented . . . by Charles
A. Eastman and W. E. B. Du Bois.” 38 In light of historical and
contemporary discourses of Black people erasing Indigenous people, Du
Bois including this information about Eastman along with his photo in The
Crisis is quite profound.
The secretary and organizer of the URC, Gustav Spiller, wrote to
Eastman, thanking him for sending a paper on Native Americans. On
January 27, 1911, Eastman wrote a letter to General Richard Henry Pratt,
the founder of the Carlisle Indian School in 1879, and infamous for the
statement, “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” 39 Eastman asked
Pratt for money to write a book on the Dakotas, but he also promoted the
Congress. “The Secretary of the Universal Races Congress has just written
thanking me for my ‘very able paper’ also asking my co-operation in
several ways,” he wrote. “He asks for a list of the best books on the Indian
and especially on Indian Education.” 40