{"id":272349,"date":"2025-06-04T08:41:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-june-4-2025-graduationstudying-du-boiss-speech\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T08:41:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T08:41:03","slug":"americanstudies-june-4-2025-graduationstudying-du-boiss-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=272349","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: June 4, 2025: GraduationStudying: Du Bois\u2019s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[This past
\nweekend, my younger son and co<\/a>-favorite-Guest
\nPoster Kyle Railton<\/a> graduated from high school. As I wipe away
\nproud Dad tears, this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contexts
\nfor this momentous occasion\u2014leading up to a special weekend post on what\u2019s next
\nfor the new grad!]<\/p>\n

On two of
\nthe many vital 2025 lessons from a 1930 speech to high school graduates.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote a
\ngood bit about W.E.B. Du Bois\u2019s 1930 address \u201c<\/span>Reflections
\nupon the Housatonic River<\/span><\/a>,\u201d delivered to the graduates of Searles High
\nSchool (in his hometown of Great Barrington, MA), in <\/span>this prior
\npost<\/span><\/a>. In lieu of a full first paragraph here, I\u2019d ask you to check out
\nboth the speech and my post if you would, and then come back for a couple
\nfurther thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome
\nback! One of my favorite things about Du Bois (a very long and competitive
\nlist, as readers of this blog know well) was how much he loved rivers, and his
\nlove of the Housatonic River of his childhood in particular contributed to the publication
\nin his NAACP magazine The Crisis<\/i> of the first poem<\/a> by none other
\nthan Langston Hughes, as I discussed
\nin this post<\/a>. He opens his speech with a recognition that that love, and
\nthus the speech\u2019s titular subject, might seem silly, that \u201con hearing the
\nsubject of my speech, some of you may have thought of it as a joke.\u201d But it is
\nanything but, and not just because of his personal affiliation with and
\nfondness for this particular river. Instead, the central subject of Du Bois\u2019s
\nspeech is an overarching argument for taking better care of our rivers and all our
\nnatural spaces, an impassioned plea that, as he concludes his speech, we \u201cshould
\nrescue the Housatonic and clean it as we have never in all the years before
\nthought of cleaning it, and seek to restore its ancient beauty; making it the
\ncenter of a town, of a valley, and perhaps\u2014who knows?\u2014of a new measure of civilized
\nlife.\u201d Never has that call been more necessary than here in the summer of 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such
\nenvironmental conservation is a key part of Du Bois\u2019s speech, but I would argue
\nthat he makes the case for it through an even more overarching concept: that of
\nwhat we collectively owe to the communities that we are part of. Earlier this
\nyear, the film historian and American Studies scholar Vaughn
\nJoy<\/a> focused her excellent review
\nof High Noon<\/i><\/a> on the defining American debate between the individual
\nand the community. Like both Vaughn and me, Du Bois was a lifelong advocate for
\nthe communal emphasis, for the idea that we are all profoundly connected to one
\nanother and the concurrent concept that society only functions at all (much
\nless approaches its more perfect unions) when we seek to strengthen such
\ncommunal connections. And he also ends this moving speech, just before that
\nquote about rescuing and restoring the river, with an appeal to his audience
\nbased precisely on that sentiment, through the lens of the high school from
\nwhich they all had graduated: \u201cAnd so I have ventured to call to the attention
\nof the graduates of the Searles High School this bit of philosophy of living in
\nthis valley.\u201d If America is to survive, and certainly if has a chance to thrive
\nin the years ahead, we must all hang together, not just out of necessity but
\nout of such communal connection. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next
\ngraduation connection tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Graduation texts or topics you\u2019d share? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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