Every Crumb of Cake: W.E.B. Du Bois, Food, Intimacy, and Patriarchy

ABSTRACT Intellectual histories of African American luminary W.E.B. Du Bois emphasize his thought at the expense of passing over the rich meanings embedded in his quotidian activities. Du Bois constructed personal food practices with care, using food as a way to communicate beliefs and as a tool to build relationships. In particular, a food history perspective yields insights into the dynamics of Du Bois’s intimate relationships with women and reveals some contradictions between his rhetorical commitment to their empowerment and his daily actions. A shift in focus from Du Bois’s public persona to his domestic, food-related actions also uncovers the influence that Nina Gomer Du Bois—who appears as a cipher in the scholarship about Black political activism—may have had upon her husband’s work and beliefs.