1904 – W.E.B. Du Bois Delivers “The Souls of White Folk” Lecture

On June 16, 1904, W.E.B. Du Bois delivered an early version of what would later become his essay The Souls of White Folk, exploring whiteness, imperialism, and racial hierarchy. Delivered during a conference in St. Louis, Du Bois critiqued how whiteness had become a global ideology of domination. This intellectual foundation would later appear in his more widely known 1920 essay. At a time when white supremacy was globalized through colonialism, Du Bois’s June 16 lecture was radically ahead of its time—daring to name and deconstruct whiteness as a social construct rather than a biological truth. His ideas anticipated critical race theory and global anti-colonial movements. While not published until years later, the June 16 address laid the groundwork for future challenges to white hegemony in both scholarship and activism.