Du Bois simultaneously opposed colonial framing yet advocated gradual decolonization.

Evidence

In “Reconstruction and Africa,” published in the February 1919 issue of The Crisis, Du Bois rejected, in antiracist fashion, the notion that Europe was the “Benevolent Civilizer of Africa.” He declared, “White men are merely juggling with words—or worse—when they declare that the withdrawal of Europe from Africa will plunge the continent into chaos.” On the other assimilationist hand, Du Bois helped organize the First Pan-African Congress that month in Paris, which called on the Paris Peace Conference to adopt “gradual” decolonization and civil rights. Du Bois desired a “chance for peaceful and accelerated development of black folk.” — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 817

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete paired examples of antiracist (rejecting the civilizer myth) vs. assimilationist (gradualism) positions from the same person in the same month.
• XREF: The ‘gradual’ stance here echoes the reader’s framework that assimilationism accepts racist gradualism while antiracism demands immediate equality.