ABSTRACT
The preeminence of Dr. W. E. B. DuBois' leadership has been on the wane. One of the causes of this was the growing realization among a number of Dr. DuBois' younger disciples that his program of civil liberty and Negro suffrage rights did not touch the basic realities of Negro life. He aims to rewrite the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction periods to show the importance of the Negro in winning the war and in assisting the radical Republicans to institute "pure democracy" in this country. When the war was over a violent debate arose as to the political and social status of the emancipated slaves in American society. Having thus established its economic and political hegemony, capitalism no longer needed the Negro voters and politicians. It left them to the mercy of the South's rising banking and merchant class.
