Introduction to Black Studies, Fall 2007

Professors Basu & Fairchild

Quiz for September 24, 2007

Name:______________________________

 
  1. According to the biography by Gerald C. Hynes, at what age did W.E.B. DuBois become “…the local correspondent for the New York Globe…where he conceived it his duty to push his race forward by lectures and editorials reflecting upon the need of Black people to politicize themselves”?
    1. 15
    2. 19
    3. 21
    4. 28
    5. 35

 

  1. According to the biography by Gerald C. Hynes, where did W.E.B. DuBois complete his dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America?
    1. Claremont Graduate University
    2. Harvard
    3. Princeton
    4. Fisk University
    5. The University of Berlin

 

  1. On August 27, 1963, on the eve of the march on Washington, DuBois died in __________.
    1. A car accident
    2. A plane crash
    3. Accra, Ghana
    4. Great Barrington, Massachusetts (the place of his birth on 2/23/1868)
    5. Washington, DC

 

  1. The “Collapse” of Europe, according to DuBois, was due to five factors.  Which of the following was NOT one of them?
    1. 1905 St. Petersburg massacre of Russian workers
    2. 1911 German claims on Morocco
    3. World War I in 1914
    4. 1929 Great Depression
    5. World War II in 1939
    6. None of the above

 

  1. According to DuBois, World War I was launched when Germany invaded
    1. Belgium
    2. The Seychelles
    3. French Guiana
    4. England
    5. Austria

 

 

 

  1. Draw a line to connect to the two halves of the paradoxes identified by DuBois in the thinking of Western (European and U.S.) conquerers.

 

Golden Rule                             Use of force to subjugate

White Man’s Burden                Necessity of poverty

Democratic Rule                       Poverty & Ignorance

Peace                                       War

 

  1. According to DuBois (Chapter 3), the Europe-West African (also known as Guinea) trade involved four great European Powers.  Which was the first?
    1. Spain
    2. Britain
    3. France
    4. Portugal
    5. None of the above

 

  1. DuBois quoted a passage from Chapman Cohen (1931):  Modern slavery was created by _____, it was continued by ____, and it was in some respects more barbarous than anything the world had yet seen… (p. 53)
    1. Portuguese
    2. Dutch
    3. British
    4. French
    5. Christians

 

  1. After the establishment of the “Company of Merchants trading to Africa,” in 1750, the slave trade grew tremendously.  Between 1680 and 1786, the British colonies imported over ______ slaves.  (p. 54)
    1. 20,000
    2. 100,000
    3. 2,000,000
    4. 5,000,000
    5. 10,000,000

 

  1. According to DuBois, the trade in human captives, agricultural produce, and manufactured goods, that traveled the route from Europe to Africa to the America and back to Europe again, was known as a ______ trade.
    1. Circular
    2. Square
    3. Rectangular
    4. Triangular
    5. Equilateral

Bonus Questions

 
  1. Who or what did DuBois repeatedly refer to as “half-human”
    1. Dark-skinned Africans
    2. European conquerers
    3. The British
    4. Apes
    5. Elephants
  2. What did DuBois refer to as being in “full efflorescence” (p. 79).
    1. Industrialized Europe
    2. Greece and Rome
    3. West Africa (Guinea), during the slave trade
    4. West Africa (Guinea) before European contact

 

Some Quotes from the Readings

 

“….my main issue:  that Black Africans are men in the same sense as White European and Yellow Asiatics, and that history can easily prove this.”

W.E.B. DuBois, 1946, in the Foreward to his book (p. xii).

 

The exploitation of the indigenous peoples of the world was accompanied by “…the new strait jacket of thought: poverty was the result of sloth and crime; wealth was the reward of virtue and work” (DuBois, p. 21).

 

“Elaborate writing, disguised as interpretation, and the testimony of so-called ‘experts,’ made it impossible for charming people in Europe to realize what their comforts and luxuries cost in sweat, blood, death, and despair, not only in the remoter parts of the world, but even on their own doorsteps.”  (p. 22)

 

“…the idea persisted in European MINDS THAT NO MATTER WHAT THE COST IN CRUELTY, LYING, AND BLOOD, THE TRIUMPTH OF Europe was to the glory of God and the untrammeled power of the only people on earth who deserved to rule…” (p. 33)

 

“Extreme poverty in colonies was a main cause of wealth and luxury in Europe.  The results of this poverty were disease, ignorance, and crime.” (p. 37).  [and death.]

 

“This is the modern paradox of Sin before which the Puritan stands open-mouthed and mute.  A group, a nation, or a race commits murder and rape, steals and destroys, yet no individual is guilty, no one is to blame, no one can be punished!” (p. 42)

 

“I believe that the trade in human beings between Africa and America, which flourished between the Renaissance and the American Civil War, is the prime and effective cause of the contradictions in European civilization and the illogic in modern thought and the collapse of human culture.” (p. 43)