The Classics Department Presents The Annual David H. Porter Classical World Lecture

“How CICERO Influenced W. E. B. Du BOIS’ Writings on Civil-Rights Activism, 2000 Years Later”

Lecture by Matthias Hanses, Associate Professor Classics, Mediterranean, African, and African American Studies, Penn State University

Tuesday, April 2, 6 p.m.
Davis Auditorium

In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois famously describes his advocacy for granting Black students access to a college education as putting "Cicero pro Archia Poeta into the simplest English with local applications." This paper examines the implications of this allusion to a Roman orator on the part of one of history's most important civil rights activists. Du Bois presented himself as a new Cicero on more than one occasion, and the implication that the Roman orator can serve as an ally in antiracist efforts is attractive to the modern-day classicist. At the same time, it also involves significant distortions of Cicero's actual views of who does, and who does not, benefit from an education. Reading Du Bois and Cicero together and against each other will cast fresh light on both of their works and draw conclusions for the study of "The Classics" in the 21st century.