Abstract
W.E.B. Du Bois analyzed the white dominant world order that Western Europe and the U.S. had constructed through colonial and racist domination in Africa, West Indies, and Asia from a Marxist perspective. He then tried to show the possibility of a Pan-African struggle to promote global democracy through decolonization and racial equality. Western countries, according to his understanding, competed with each other to expand their territories worldwide for the maximum economic profit through the exploitation of cheap labor and natural resources. This had resulted in two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. Looking for ways to overcome colonial imperialism, the primary cause of world wars, Du Bois and his global sympathizers organized five Pan-African Congresses from 1919 to 1945. Through the Pan-African movement, Du Bois tried to build global solidarity among nonwhite peoples worldwide who shared the suffering caused by the slave trade, slavery, colonial rules, and racial discrimination. While cultural differences should be respected, according to his Pan-Africanism, people all over the world should share universal ideals such as global democracy and world peace transcending racial/ethnic and national interests. This paper discusses Du Bois’s sociological analysis of the structural contradictions inherent in a world order besed on capitalism and his contribution to the advancement of Pan-Africanism in the anti-colonial and anti-racist struggle as well as his commitment to the peace movement.
