The Li(v)es of Shirley Graham Du Bois: A Politics of Truth and Deception

My thesis explores the role of truth-telling and use of deception in Shirley Graham’s life
and literary work. In her personal life, Graham had a complicated relationship to the truth. She lied about aspects of her personal life (e.g., her age, the number of children she had, her marital status). Her own brother called her a “skillful liar.” At the same time, public truth-telling was core to her political projects and her literary works. I argue that Graham used deception and truth strategically to navigate the conditions of white supremacy and patriarchy. Both her deception and her truth-telling were oriented toward the same end: a just social order in which the founding ideals of the United States would truly apply to all. She lied about her individual characteristics to avoid the discrimination that would prevent her from achieving this end. She adopted an ethic of radical truth-telling in her public work in order to challenge a white male version of America’s history and contemporary circumstances.