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XII. Of Alexander Crummell

Summary

This chapter is Du Bois’s tribute to a clergyman and admired friend named Alexander Cummell. Du Bois lists three temptations Crummell faced in life: hate, despair, and doubt. Alexander Crummell was born before the Civil War and had experienced racism and a bitter father. Du Bois commends Crummell for not becoming hateful himself, eventually being invited to attend an abolitionist school in Oneida County, New York. Crummell felt that he should dedicate his life to being a priest. He was met with resistance and told that, due to being Black, he could not be admitted to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. 

Instead of falling to despair, Crummell opened his own church in New England. Unfortunately, Crummell experienced a steady decrease in attendance, mostly due to the lack of Black people in the area. Du Bois commends him again for not falling to doubt, which would have been the most powerful of the temptations. After meeting resistance and scorn at churches in both Philadelphia and New York, he traveled to England and then to Africa. After 20 years of wandering, he returned and “simply worked, inspiring the young, rebuking the old, helping the weak, guiding the strong.” Du Bois describes Crummell’s life as remarkable, but closes the chapter lamenting the fact that Crummell died relatively unknown.

Analysis

Du Bois uses the life of Alexander Crummell to shine a light on a largely unknown Black leader and to relate Crummell’s life to his own. Du Bois shifts into an allegorical mode to relate the account, which serves as an aspirational tale to Black people who experience racism. The three temptations Crummell faced symbolize the pitfalls that Black people face when they encounter racism, and Du Bois uses them to illustrate how easy it is to fall into them. The narrative shows the honest downside of being Black in America but offers a true story of the way one man worked around the roadblocks. The story’s lack of a fairy-tale ending emphasizes its roots in reality.

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