“Aging gracefully like Du Bois and Price-Mars”

When I grow up, I want to be like Jean Price-Mars and W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1956, Price-Mars was 80 years old and had travelled all the way to Paris to attend an international conference organized by the Society of African Culture. In 1959, the “Uncle” was still energetic, at least intellectually, and he participated again in another international conference that took place in Rome, and he attended the Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists organized by Présence Africaine. Believe me, folks: he presented academic papers at both conferences.

Here’s another breaking news, Good People:

Finally, in 1966, three years before his death, the ninety-three-yr. old (90 years old I repeat!!!) prominent Haitian Pan-Africanist intellectual and the Dean of Black culture in the world—as many have called him—attended The World Festival of Black Arts, marking his first visit to Dakar, Senegal.

Doesn’t’ Jean Price-Mars remind you of the intellectually astute W.E.B. Du Bois in his late 80s and even early 90s was still traveling, writing, researching, and delivering conference papers. Did you know that Du Bois was 90 years old when he visited Ghana and initiated the landmark book project, that is, the creation of a new encyclopedia about the people of the African diaspora, commonly called “Encyclopedia Africana.” In 1961, Du Bois travelled again to Ghana to begin his editorial duty on the Encyclopedia.

Jean Price-Mars was born on October 15, 1876, and died in his home in Pétionville, Haiti, on March 1, 1969. He was 93 years old. W. E. B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, MA, and died in Acra, Ghana, on August 27, 1963. He was 95 years old. Alright, Good People. Like Du Bois, I am going to die at 95 years old, and I still have a half-century to live before I go home to be with my Lord. Like Price-Mars, I want to die in my native land: Haiti 🙂

Happy Saturday!