W.E.B. DuBois's Challenge to Scientific Racism

In 1929 several hundred people gathered in Chicago's North Hall to witness a debate on the question, Should the Negro Be Encouraged to Cultural Equality? The affirmative position was argued by W.E.B. DuBois. His opponent was Theodore Lothrop Stoddard, Harvard Ph.D. and author of dozens of popular articles and twenty-two books. During the course of the debate, Stoddard (1929: 1) summarized the conclusions to which modern science had led him: To-day, as never before, we possess a clear appreciation of racial realities.... We know that our America is a White America.... And the overwhelming weight of both historical and scientific evidence shows that only so long as the American people remain white will its institutions, ideals and culture continue to fit the temperament of its inhabitants-and hence continue to endure. Stoddard had excellent reason to celebrate the clarity of his perceptions and the self-evidence of his conclusions. Quite literally, he had it on the best authority. His concept of race as a determining factor in human affairs was supported with virtual unanimity by the leading figures in American social science. Utilizing both professional and popular channels, biologists, psychologists, and sociologists proclaimed with one voice the inherent and immutable inferiority of the black race.