This short article describes an exchange between W.E.B. Du Bois and B.R. Ambedkar on their feeling of common cause in the fight against anti-Black racism in America and caste and colonial oppression in India. B.R. Ambedkar is important to Buddhism in that he drew on Buddhist teachings (especially, its anti-caste ethics) in his drafting of the Indian constitution and fight against caste oppression. He led the largest ever mass conversion to Buddhism in his effort to help Dalits overcome the social and psychological oppression of the caste system. This exchange should go alongside that of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King, Jr, as we examine the social liberatory possibilities of Buddhism today. (Look for a longer reflection on Ambedkar’s Buddhist social philosophical thought in relation to Marxism and contemporary African American Buddhist teachings on social-collective liberation on this blog soon–from the perspective of a student and admirer of recent research in this area, not an expert/specialist : )
