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.
In Their Own Words (5)
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.
To the Nations of the World, address to Pan-African conference, London (1900). These words are also found in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), ch. II: Of the Dawn of Freedom , 1900
The treatment of the period of Reconstruction reflects small credit upon American historians as scientists. We have too often a deliberate attempt so to change the facts of history that the story will make pleasant reading for Americans.
p. 713 , 1935
I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.
The Talented Tenth, published as the second chapter of The Negro Problem, a collection of articles by African Americans (New York: James Pott and Company, 1903) , 1903
The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
Ch. XI: The Negro in the United States , 1915
Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.
Ch. XI: The Negro in the United States , 1915
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.
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