The Global Color Line and White Supremacy: W. E. B. Du Bois as a Grand Theorist of Race

This chapter addresses how Du Bois theorized race globally. Based on close readings of his work on the global color line and white supremacy, the chapter draws attention to four Du Boisian guideposts for today’s students of race. First, race is a category of exclusion and oppression. Second, empirical observation attendant to oppressed people grants insight into the workings of global color line. Third, a global understanding of the color line links local cases to a global theory of racial colonial capitalism. Fourth, the color line is the product of economic exploitation, war, and white supremacy. For Du Bois, the color line was global, but always with local manifestations. His attention to documenting processes of exploitation in the United States, Africa, and Asia formed a basis for his calls for decolonization.