Lines of Descent The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures Lines of Descent W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity Kwame Anthony Appiah Cambridge, Massachusetts London, Eng land . 2014 Copyright © 2014 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Appiah, Anthony Lines of descent : W. E. B. Du Bois and the emergence of identity / Kwame Anthony Appiah. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978- 0- 674- 72491- 4 (alk. paper) 1. Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868– 1963. 2. Education—Philosophy. 3. African Americans— Education. 4. African American intellectuals. 5. Intellectuals— United States. 6. Identity (Philosophical concept) I. Title. LB875.D83A67 2014 973.04960730092—dc23 [B] 2013030761 Book design by Dean Bornstein For my sisters, their spouses, and their children— a family in diaspora CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. The Awakening 25 2. Culture and Cosmopolitanism 45 3. The Concept of the Negro 83 4. The Mystic Spell 119 5. The One and the Many 143 Notes 167 Ac know ledgm ents 221 Index 225 His triumph is a triumph not of himself alone, but of humankind . . . —W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Superior Race”