ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the contributions of W. E. B. Du Bois and E. Franklin Frazier to exploring the strengths and weaknesses of social science as a viable means of researching the black experience. It reviews selected contemporary efforts to revisit the challenges posed by Du Bois and Frazier and develop a liberatory social science research tradition within Africana Studies. The realization led Du Bois to seek ways of integrating political advocacy and systematic inquiry through his position as editor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's organ, The Crisis. Despite Du Bois's and Frazier's important contributions to establishing workable guidelines for social scientific studies of the black experience, both expressed strong reservations about excessive commitment to quantification at the expense of conceptual clarity. Hopefully, a similar recognition that the problem of the twenty-first century is still the problem of the color line will inspire a new generation of Africana Studies researches to follow in Du Bois's footsteps.
