This work has in so many ways been a personal journey for me as years before the inception of this volume I began a journey of intellectual self-discovery in which the life and work of Du Bois remained a central muse. So intertwined with my personal story, I ask the reader to indulge me as I break from the traditional means of penning a preface and walk you through portions of that journey as I find it necessary in understanding the soul of this work before you.

The 2009–2010 academic year presented interesting turning points in my life. I was a student at Alabama State University at the time, majoring in history and performing disastrously. Many who supervised my novice scholarship expressed that while I was naturally gifted in history and philosophy—a trait I inherited from my grandfather who taught history for over thirty years—I was unfortunately very undisciplined. However, in the fall of 2009, a chance meeting with Dr. Stephen Redmond, the newly installed director of Alabama State University's branch of the Wesley Foundation, set off a series of events that put me on the right course. Redmond had just moved three doors down from me in the same apartment complex. He was a recent graduate of Emory University's Candler School of Theology, receiving the degree Master of Divinity.

I, much like Du Bois throughout his life, had begun to question the historicity of biblical events as well as the historical effects of African people's adoption of this culturally foreign religious faith. However, I was neither informed enough nor intellectually mature enough to provide any serious cultural-historical assessment of the Hebrew religion that could serve to ease my growing discontent with Christian dogma. On the night of our meeting, Redmond was quite welcoming and conceded to my inquiries though, unbeknownst to me at the time, did so in the tradition of a good scholar of biblical apologetics. He would in later years inform me that this was a ruse to shield his own theological standings while at the same time discovering for himself my intellectual potential.

With a slight smirk and wide-eyed gaze, he questioned me on my own thinking about the world, particularly the state of African people within it. This turn in discourse was refreshing, and I began to offer my humble thoughts.