Historical Figure
W. E. B. Du Bois
1868–1963
American sociologist and activist (1868–1963)
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Biography
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. He completed graduate work at Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He was a professor at Atlanta University and over the course of his life wrote a large number of books and articles. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra on August 27, 1963.
Timeline
The story of W. E. B. Du Bois, told in moments.
Became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. His dissertation examined the suppression of the African slave trade. He was 27.
Published The Souls of Black Folk, 14 essays that broke with Booker T. Washington's accommodationism. Introduced the concept of "double consciousness." The book sold 10,000 copies in its first year.
Co-founded the NAACP. Edited its magazine, The Crisis, for 24 years. Circulation hit 100,000 by the 1920s. He used it to document lynchings, fight segregation, and publish Black writers.
At 93, joined the Communist Party and moved to Ghana at the invitation of President Nkrumah. Renounced his American citizenship. He'd spent decades under FBI surveillance and had his passport confiscated during the McCarthy era.
In Their Own Words (20)
It has long been the belief of modern men that the history of Europe covers the essential history of civilization, with unimportant exceptions; that the progress of the white [Europeans] has been along the one natural, normal path to the highest possible human culture.
W. E. B. Du Bois, quoted in John M. Hobson. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. New York: Bridge University Press, 2004., 2004
The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.
2003
The Negro slave trade was the first step in modern world commerce, followed by the modern theory of colonial expansion. Slaves as an article of commerce were shipped as long as the traffic paid.
2003
I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.
2003
The difference of development, North and South, is explained as a sort of working out of cosmic social and economic law. ... In this sweeping mechanistic interpretation, there is no room for the real plot of the story, for the clear mistake and guilt of building a new slavery of the working class in the midst of a fateful experiment in democracy.
pp. 714-715, 1935
Artifacts (15)
Signed silver gelatin portrait photograph of W. E. B. Du Bois
Carl Van Vechten, American
Black Folk Then and Now (The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois): An Essay in the History and Sociology of the Negro Race
W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his...
The Souls of Black Folk: The Souls of Black Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois' Profound Reflections on Race, Identity and Equality
Delve into the profound and enduring legacy of African American thought with "The Souls of Black Folk" by W. E. B. Du Bois. Enter the world of Du Bois's seminal work, where he explores the...
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