The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Assimilated or the boundary of Whiteness expanded? A boundary model of group belonging

“…Both Gordon and Park alluded to phenotype race as a factor that shapes the possibilities assimilation and the prospects of being included in the mainstream society (Gordon, 1964, p. 25;Park, 1914, p. 608;see Cox, 1944 for a critique of Park's ontological definition of color lines). Park (1914, p. 611), for instance, compared the Irish and Japanese immigrants and argued that the latter had "a distinctive racial hallmark… of the Orient"; he believed that this somatic feature limits the possibility of inclusion in Whiteness in the U.S. (see also Du Bois, 2014 on color lines).…”

“…In the U.S., the Anglo-Saxon settlers sought to create an American race-nation that would bring the two Anglo-Saxon and Black races together under the same nationality (Higham, 1955, p. 20). The internal color boundary of this race-nation was policed through anti-miscegenation laws, residential segregations, and poll or head tax laws that limited the interactions between Whites and colored people, in particular African-Americans (Du Bois, 2014[1901). Color lines were reflected in federal census forms from the 18th and early 19th centuries which categorized the population into "free Whites," "free colored," and "slaves."…”

Embryonic intersectionality: W.E.B. Du Bois and the inauguration of intersectional sociology

“…Undoubtedly, Du Bois was one of the earliest innovators of, and critical contributors to, empirical social science research at the dawn of the discipline of sociology in the United States, especially during its formative phase spanning the years 1895 to 1915 (Du Bois, , 2014Bois, , 2017Gooding-Williams, 2009;Lemert, 2000;Morris, 2015;Rabaka, 2010;Williams, 2006;Wortham, 2005bWortham, , 2009cZuckerman, 2004). However, where most sociologists, in essence, start and stop with The Philadelphia Negro, which was published in 1899, Du Bois made several seminal sociological contributions that predate and prefigure his watershed Philadelphia work (Bulmer, 1991;Hunter, 2013;Katz and Sugrue, 1998;Saint-Arnaud, 2009).…”

“…Although long-overlooked, "The Negroes of Farmville" is something of a Rosetta Stone in terms of deciphering, not simply Du Bois's contributions to rural sociology, but also his innovative offerings to urban sociology. Undertaken during the era when Spencerian sociology dominated sociological discourse, the Farmville study was refreshingly free from the ungrounded grand theorizing that seemed to always and everywhere privilege conjectural commentary over the kind of empirical sociological inquiry that Du Bois had been trained in and was willfully determined to develop in the United States, especially with regard to the "Negro Problem" (Du Bois, 1978Bois, , 2004Bois, , 2014Edwards, 2006;Morris, 2015;15-54;Saari, 2009;Saint-Arnaud, 2009, 121-156. Building on, and decidedly going beyond, the methodological outline and orientation of "The Negroes of Farmville," Du Bois's The Philadelphia Negro confirms the rural study's Rosetta Stone status in his sociological discourse. Discursively mirroring his discussion of the distinct history and heritage, racialization and criminalization, family life and conjugal conditions, education and illiteracy, and work and wages of the "country Negro" in the Farmville publication, The Philadelphia Negro added in-depth investigations of the disease and death rate, alcoholism and pauperism, electoral politics and religious practices of the "city Negro" as well.…”

“…Undoubtedly his concepts of "double-consciousness" and the "color-line" are sociologically significant. However, I would also assert that his theory of Blacks' "Veiled" visibility and invisibility, as well as his emphasis on Blacks' unique "second-sight" in the White world are equally relevant with regard to the sociology of race (Du Bois, 1903c, 2005, 2014, 2011Morris, 2007Morris, , 2015Pettigrew, 1980;Shaw, 2013;Winant, 2007;Young et al, 2006). Du Bois's vision of the Veil, along with its corollary concept of the color-line, was "prophetic" in the sense that it continues to capture the of the trajectory and transmutation of American apartheid: from late-19th century Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, to the 20th century rabid racial segregation which led to the Civil Rights Movement and, ultimately, to the 21st century overt and covert racism of the post-Civil Rights period.…”