W.E.

B DUBOIS
Scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard
University in 1895. He wrote extensively and was the best-known spokesperson for African American rights
during the first half of the 20th century. Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
In 1905, Du Bois was a founder and general secretary of the Niagara Movement, an African American protest
group of scholars and professionals. Du Bois founded and edited the Moon (1906) and the Horizon
(1907-1910) as organs for the Niagara Movement.

In 1909, Du Bois was among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) and from 1910 to 1934 served it as director of publicity and research, a member of the
board of directors, and founder and editor of The Crisis, its monthly magazine.
As Activist
In The Crisis, Du Bois directed a constant stream of agitation–often bitter and sarcastic–at white Americans while serving as a

source of information and pride to African Americans. The magazine always published young African American writers.
Racial protest during the decade following World War I focused on securing anti-lynching legislation. During this period the
NAACP was the leading protest organization and Du Bois its leading figure.

In 1934, Du Bois resigned from the NAACP board and from The Crisis because of his new advocacy of an African American
nationalist strategy that ran in opposition to the NAACP’s commitment to integration. However, he returned to the NAACP as
director of special research from 1944 to 1948. During this period, he was active in placing the grievances of African
Americans before the United Nations, serving as a consultant to the UN founding convention (1945) and writing the famous
“An Appeal to the World” (1947).
As Scholar
Du Bois’s life and work were an inseparable mixture of scholarship, protest activity, and polemics. All of his efforts
were geared toward gaining equal treatment for black people in a world dominated by whites and toward marshaling
and presenting evidence to refute the myths of racial inferiority.

From his earliest years, Du Bois was a prolific, gifted scholar. In 1884, Du Bois graduated from high school as
valedictorian. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., in 1888, having spent
summers teaching in African American schools in Nashville’s rural areas. In 1888 he entered Harvard University as a
junior, took a bachelor of arts cum laude in 1890, and was one of six commencement speakers. From 1892 to 1894
he pursued graduate studies in history and economics at the University of Berlin on a Slater Fund fellowship. He
served for 2 years as professor of Greek and Latin at Wilberforce University in Ohio.
Du Bois received his Master of Arts from Harvard in 1891, and, in 1895, he became the first African American to receive a
doctorate from the university. His dissertation, “The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America,
1638-1870,” was published as No. 1 in Harvard Historical Series.

In 1896-1897, Du Bois became assistant instructor in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. There he conducted the
pioneering sociological study of an urban community, published as The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899). These
first two works assured Du Bois’s place among America’s leading scholars.

From 1897 to 1910 Du Bois served as professor of economics and history at Atlanta University, where he organized
conferences titled the Atlanta University Studies of the Negro Problem and edited or co-edited 16 of the annual publications,
on such topics as The Negro in Business (1899), The Negro Artisan (1902), The Negro Church (1903), Economic
Cooperation among Negro Americans (1907), and The Negro American Family (1908). Other significant publications were
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (1903), one of the outstanding collections of essays in American letters, and
John Brown (1909), a sympathetic portrayal published in the American Crisis Biographies series.
Du Bois also wrote two novels, The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911) and Dark Princess: A Romance (1928); abook
of essays and poetry, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920); and two histories of black people, The Negro
(1915) and The Gift of Black Folk: Negroes in the Making of America (1924).

From 1934 to 1944 Du Bois was chairman of the department of sociology at Atlanta University. In 1940 he founded
Phylon, a social science quarterly. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935), perhaps his most significant
historical work, details the role of African Americans in American society, specifically during the Reconstruction
period. The book was criticized for its use of Marxist concepts and for its attacks on the racist character of much of
American historiography. However, it remains the best single source on its subject
As Global Citizen
In 1948, he was cochairman of the Council on African Affairs; in 1949 he attended the New
York, Paris, and Moscow peace congresses; in 1950 he served as chairman of the Peace
Information Center and ran for the U.S. Senate on the American Labor party ticket in New
York. In 1950-1951, Du Bois was tried and acquitted as an agent of a foreign power in one of
the most ludicrous actions ever taken by the American government. Du Bois traveled widely
throughout Russia and China in 1958-1959 and in 1961 joined the Communist party of the
United States. He also took up residence in Ghana, Africa, in 1961.
As Global Citizen
Du Bois was also active in behalf of Pan-Africanism and concerned with the conditions of people of African
descent wherever they lived. In 1900 he attended the First Pan-African Conference held in London, was
elected a vice president, and wrote the “Address to the Nations of the World.” The Niagara Movement
included a “pan-African department.” In 1911 Du Bois attended the First Universal Races Congress in
London along with black intellectuals from Africa and the West Indies.
Du Bois organized a series of Pan-African congresses around the world, in 1919, 1921, 1923, and 1927. The
delegations comprised intellectuals from Africa, the West Indies, and the United States. Though resolutions
condemning colonialism and calling for alleviation of the oppression of Africans were passed, little concrete action
was taken. The Fifth Congress (1945, Manchester, England) elected Du Bois as chairman, but the power was clearly
in the hands of younger activists, such as George Padmore and Kwame Nkrumah, who later became significant in the
independence movements of their respective countries. Du Bois’s final Pan-African gesture was to take up
citizenship in Ghana in 1961 at the request of President Kwame Nkrumah and to begin work as director of the
Encyclopedia Africana.

Du Bois died in Ghana on Aug. 27, 1963, on the eve of the civil rights march in Washington, D.C. He was given a
state funeral, at which Kwame Nkrumah remarked that he was “a phenomenon.”