This Month's Vinyl Sharity

W.E.B. Dubois, A Recorded Autobiography, Interview by Moses Asch (Folkways Records, 1961)

These recorded anecdotes by American man of letters and African-American activist W.E.B. Dubois (1868-1963) have a certain charm. Dubois is 93 years old by this time (and he sounds it with his whistling dentures), but it isn't a particularly nostalgic reminiscence (apart from some college memories of Fisk and William James). He makes it clear that life is full of failures as well as fears--particularly when it comes to money. But Dubois doesn't voice many regrets here, either.

Smithsonian Folkways offers these tracks via paid download, if you find this rip sonically challenged. (There were a couple unresolvable scratches on the second side: it is a library copy.) The Folkways site conveniently provides the cover art and insert, too. The tracks are here.

Folkways Records FH5511
Side 1
1. Early College Years, Fisk U.
2. Harvard U.
3. Germany
4. Atlanta U.
5. N.A.A.C.P.
6. "The Crisis"

Side 2
1. WW1, Pan-African Conference
2. Africa, & USA & Russia
3. Atlanta U.
4. NAACP and the UN
5. Peace Conference and the Trial
6. The Negro and Young People
7. The Negro and Africa Today