Du Bois, describing his efforts to convince his peers to enter this area of research, suggests that a sizable number of Whites were reluctant to embrace a research agenda with Blacks at the center of analysis because of the perceived marginal status of its members and the belief that any scientific study centered on race, at least during this period in America's development, could not produce research findings that were devoid of subjective racial motives. Commenting on the obstacles he

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... ed while attempting to gain support from White academics and philanthropists, Du Bois said: We have been unable as yet to convince any considerable number of the American peopie of the burning necessity of work of this sort and its deep scientific significance . .. The mass of thinking people, however, fail to recognize the true significance of an attempt to study systematically the greatest social problem that has ever faced a great modem nation (Du Bois [1904] 1978:58-59). Du Bois' disdain for and frustration with the White intelligentsia for failing to understand the importance of scientifically studying a group of people sojourning from the toils of chattel slavery as they moved to freedom and from rural to urban life is captured in his admonition that: Such an attitude is allowable to the ignorant -it is expected among horses and among the uncultivated masses of men, but it is not expected of the scientific leaders of a great nation (Du Bois [1904] 1978:56). Du Bois' frustration with the academic community stemmed from its failure to recognize the significance of long-term, systematic, and scientific study of the American Negro. Du Bois considered the scientific study of the social, economic, and physical condition of Black Americans to be of the utmost importance since "we have here going on before our eyes the evolution of a vast group of men from simpler primitive conditions to higher more complex civilization" (Du Bois [1904] 1978:54). Repeatedly, Du Bois relished the opportunity for all scholars. Black and White, to engage in objective scientific inquiry centered on Black Americans. In a 1961 interview, Du Bois reveals that, immediately after completing research for his seminal text, The Philadelphia Negro, he desired to ground a program for the scientific study of Black Americans within the member institutions of what is now known as the Ivy League: What we needed was an academic study of the American Negro. I wanted the Universities of Pennsylvania and Harvard and Yale and so forth to go into a sort of partnership by which this kind of study could be forwarded. But they of course didn't do anything at all (P. 3) Arguably, his biggest frustration with White academics and philanthropists extended from their inability to sufficiently understand the significance and importance of engaging in research on a human group making the transitions from slavery to freedom and rural to city life. Du Bois said: I think it may safely be asserted that never before in the history of the modem world has there heen presented to men of a great nation so rare an opportunity to observe and measure and study the evolution of a great branch of the human race as is given to Americans in the study of the American Negro ([1904] 1978:54). Although Du Bois was fascinated with the idea of studying this once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, his colleagues, for the most part, were not. Two explanations are offered for the hesitance of some White academics to engage in research on Black Americans. First, according to Du Bois, many White academics and philanthropists viewed Blacks as marginal people who were not deserving of serious scientific attention by social scientists. He theorized: If the Negroes are not ordinary human beings, if their development is simply the retrogression of an inferior people, and the only possihie future for the Negro, a future of inferiority, decline and death, then it is manifest that a study of such a group, while still of interest and scientific value is of less pressing and immediate necessity than the study of a group which is distinctly recognized as belonging to the great human family, whose advancement is possible, and whose future depends on its own efforts and the fairness and reasonahleness of the dominant and surrounding group ([1904] 1978:56-57). Du Bois' second explanation centers on objectivity. It is of course perfectly clear as to why scientific men have long fought shy of [the study of Black Americans]. The presence of the Negro in America has long been the subject of bitter and repeated controversy-of war and hate, of strife and turmoil. It has been said that so dangerous a field, where feelings were deep-seated and turbulent, was not the place for scientific calm of clear headed investigation (Du Bois [1904] 1978:56). SOCIOLOGICAL FOCUS Summarily, while Du Bois openly and actively championed the scientific study of post emancipation and industrialization era Black Americans, he suggests that many White academics and philanthropists shied away from this research agenda because of the perception that Blacks, at best, were marginal Americans and because they were concerned with issues of objectivity. Biased Research and the Uncritical Response of Academics Perhaps the most significant factor leading to the development of Black sociology, according to Du Bois, was the biased research conducted by some White scholars and the uncritical response of academics. Black and White, to various methodological issues. In an 1898 article entitled, "The Study of the Negro Problems," Du Bois stated: Americans are bom in many cases with deep, fierce convictions on the Negro question, and in other cases imbibe them from their environment. When such men come to write on the subject, without technical training, without breadth of view, and in some cases without a deep sense of the sanctity of scientific truth, their testimony, however interesting as opinion, must of necessity be worthless as science ([1898] 1978:76). Du Bois alludes here to the difficulty that a White scholar may have in conducting objective scientific research on Black Americans less than ten years after the establishment of sociology at Chicago and two years after the Plessey decision. Reared in an American culture that psychologically maligned and physically brutalized its second class citizens while simultaneously promoting its biological, physical, and intellectual inferiority, it is apparent that Du Bois is of the opinion that a great many of his colleagues were not able or willing to relinquish the negative perception of Black Americans that was emblazoned in the minds of many White Americans from birth and cultivated during the American socialization process. Du Bois concludes, allowing for a number of exceptions, that many of those who mature in such a culture may not necessarily be equipped to engage in research that one may define as value free. In his 1974 article, "W. E. B. Du Bois as Sociologist," Elliott Rudwick presents data from E. Franklin Frazier, a prominent early Black sociologist, supporting Du Bois' indictment that some early American scientific studies on Black Americans were not value free. According to Rudwick (1974): As Frazier has described the situation, the "general point of view" of the first sociologists to study the black man was that "the Negro is an inferior race because of either biological or social hereditary or both." . . . These conclusions were generally supported by the marshalling of a vast amount of statistical data on the pathological aspects of Negro life. In short, "The sociological theories which were implicit in the writings on the Negro problem were merely rationalizations of the existing racial situation." (P. 48) Examples of scholarship that produced theories consistent with the racial beliefs of the era can be found, according to Rudwick, in, arguably, the most prestigious journal in the discipline of sociology, the American Journal of Sociology: It is true that the Joumal did carry articles by a man like W. I. Thomas, who criticized racist theories, but other items displayed the racial biases of their authors. The September 1903 issue included an article by H. E. Berlin entitled "The Civil War as Seen through Southem Glasses," in which the author described slavery as "the most humane and the most practical method ever devised for 'bearing the white man's burden."" The publication of such views in the American Joumal of Sociology reflected theories about race held in the profession at the time. (P. 48) In addition to the publication of articles supporting biological theories of Negro JIM CROW SOCIOLOGY 5 inferiority, an "examination ofthe writings of [the 'Big Five'] presidents of [the American Sociological Association] from 1905, when the Association was founded, to 1914, reveals that this general ideology [was] present, varying from one president to another in its degree of subtlety" (Green and Driver 1976:331). Green and Driver expound on this notion by asserting: [R. Charles] Key's analysis ofthe writings of Sumner, Giddings, Small, Ward, and Ross leads him to conclude [that].. .The racism ofthe pioneer sociologists and the incidents of racism found in their works seems to range from unashamed bigotry to tacit acceptance. Their racism can he understood in the same manner hy which their theories and prophecies can he understood; with reference to the socio-culture in which they took meaning and shape; their opportunity structures, 'styles of life,' and world views. (P. 331) Almost as appalling as the subjective race theories espoused during the early years of American sociology, according to Du Bois, was the fact that many scholars were uncritical in their examination of the often racist and inaccurate literature on Black Americans. Du Bois said: We continually assume the niaterial we have at hand to be typical; we reverently receive a column of figures without asking who collected them, how they were arranged, how far are they valid and what chances of error they contain; we receive the testimony of men without asking whether they were trained or ignorant, careful or careless, truthful or given to exaggeration, and above all, whether they are giving facts or opinions ( [1898] 1978:77-78). [The Atlanta Studies were] grafted on an attempt by George Bradford of Boston, one ofthe trustees, to open for Atlanta University a field of usefulness for city Negroes comparable to what Hampton and Tuskegee were doing for rural districts in agriculture and industry ... Mr. Bradford's idea was to establish at Atlanta a similar conference, devoted especially to problems of city Negroes (1968:213-214). Bradford's primary objective for the Atlanta University studies was to develop a body of literature examining the social, economic, and physical condition of urban Black Americans during a period of immense societal transition. In so doing, Bradford and Atlanta University officials wanted to distinguish their conference from these conferences at Hampton and Tuskegee. Atlanta University's attempt to separate itself from the existing conferences produced many ofthe guiding principles for what we term "Black sociology." The principles of Black sociology, developed in part from the Atlanta University monographs and previous scholarly attempts to define this area, are that: 1) the research be led, primarily, by Black Americans; 2) the research center on Black Americans; 3) the research be interdisciplinary; 4) the findings, whenever possible, be generalizable; and 5) the findings, whenever possible, have social/public policy implications. JIM CROW SOCIOLOGY 7