Abstract

At the dawn of the twentieth century in 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois stated emphatically: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line,--the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea." In 1961, he noted regretfully that this statement was still held true. ;The problem at stake is that of democratic inclusion and pluralism, viewed under a new challenge to modern Western democracy, the challenge of race and culture. The existence of the racial question, also expressed as the black problem, alongside democracy confronts modern Western society with the charge of inconsistency. Hence the need of emancipation for democracy, meaning that modern democracy must be freed of its chauvinism and exclusivism to become a universal inclusion. Otherwise the ideal of democracy, which is universal human emancipation, is greatly compromised. ;The basic principles of modern democracy have to be reformulated within the framework of universal inclusion, and from the standpoint of racial and cultural diversity, hence broadening the concept of democratic pluralism. The principle of equality is stated primarily as racial and cultural group equality, and the principle of freedom is understood as freedom from racial "caste". Human equality in the concrete must be viewed as equality of opportunity for all racial groups. ;Chapter 1 is the introduction to the thesis. ;Part 1 consists essentially in following Du Bois' depiction of the problem of inconsistency through the dominant systems and historical happenings which have marked the alienation and exclusion of the darker races and which epitomize white oppression of blacks in the Americas and Africa in particular. ;Part 2 examines Du Bois' solutions for overcoming the dilemma posed by the racial question in modern democracy. ;Part 3 , is a discussion about Du Bois' theory of socialism and black nationalism, including its consistency with his struggle for universal inclusion