WEB Du Bois, better known as William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868. He was born to Alfred and Mary Burghardt Du Bois. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was raised in a small but long established Black community in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.At that time Great Barrington had perhaps 25, but not more than 50, Black people out of a population of about 5,000. Consequently, there were little signs of racism over there. Nevertheless, its venom was distributed through a constant barrage of suggestive innuendoes and vindictive attitudes of its residents. This mutated the personality of young William from good natured and outgoing to sullen and withdrawn. This was later reinforced and strengthened by inner withdrawals in the face of real discriminations. His demeanor of introspection haunted him throughout his life. An avid student, Du Bois was published in the community's newspaper by the age of fourteen. An outstanding critic, editor, scholar, author, and civil rights leader, W. E. B. Du Bois is certainly among the most influential blacks of the twentieth century. 




While in high school Du Bois showed a keen concern for the development of his race. At age fifteen he became the local correspondent for the New York Globe. And in this position he conceived it his duty to push his race forward by lectures and editorials reflecting upon the need of Black people to politicize themselves.

Du Bois was naturally gifted intellectually and took pleasurable pride in surpassing his fellow students in academic and other pursuits. Upon graduation from high school, he, like many other New England students of his caliber, desired to attend Harvard. However, he lacked the financial resources to go to that institution.

He graduated from high school early and enrolled at Fisk University. Upon receiving his bachelorette degree, Du Bois accepted a scholarship at the University of Berlin, where he studied for two years. Following this, he went to Harvard, where he received his doctoral degree, being the first African American to do so.  By the turn of the century, Dr. Du Bois was on his way to becoming a career academician. From 1894 to 1896, Du Bois served as professor of Greek and Latin at Wilberforce University in Ohio. After his term was completed,he accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania, as an assistant instructor teaching sociology. It is of course during this time that he conducted the research for his landmark work, Philadelphia Negro (1899). It was characteristic of the times that Du Bois was not allowed to stay on the segregated campus. In 1896, Du Bois married Nina Gomer, who would later bear him two children, Burghardt (who died at the age of three) and Yolande. From 1897 to 1910, he served as professor of economics and history at Atlanta University. He served as chairman of the sociology department there from 1934 to 1944.




Du Bois was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1896. Between 1897 and 1914 Du Bois conducted numerous studies of black society in America, publishing 16 research papers. He began his investigations believing that social science could provide answers to race problems. Gradually he concluded that in a climate of virulent racism, social change could only be accomplished by agitation and protest. At the turn of the century Du Bois had been a supporter of black capitalism. Throughout his career he moved steadily to the political left. By 1905 he had been drawn to socialist ideas and remained sympathetic to Marxism throughout his life. Du Bois acted in support of integration and equal rights for everyone regardless of race, but his thinking often exhibited a degree of black separatist-nationalist tendencies. In 1961 Du Bois became completely disillusioned with the United States. He moved to Ghana, joined the Communist Party, and a year later renounced his American Citizenship.

One of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, Du Bois served as that organization's director of publications and editor of Crisis magazine until 1934. In 1944, he returned from Atlanta University to become head of the NAACP's special research department, a post he held until 1948. Dr. Du Bois immigrated to Africa in 1961, and became editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Africana, an enormous publishing venture which had been planned by Kwame Nkrumah, since then deposed as president of Ghana.



                    Books Written by W.E.B Du Bois:
  •  The Suppression of the Slave Trade (1896)                                                                                
  • The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
  • The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
  • John Brown (1909)
  • Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911)
  • The Negro (1915)
  • Darkwater (1920)
  • The Gift of Black Folk (1924)
  • Dark Princess (1928)
  • Black Folk: Then and Now (1939)
  • Dusk of Dawn (1940)
  • Color and Democracy (1945)
  • The World and Africa (1947)
  • In Battle for Peace (1952)
  • A trilogy, Black Flame (1957-1961)

It is this enormous literary output on such a wide variety of themes which offers the most convincing testimony to Du Bois's lifetime position that it was vital for blacks to cultivate their own aesthetic and cultural values even as they made valuable strides toward social emancipation. In this he was opposed by Booker T. Washington, who felt that the blacks should concentrate on developing technical and mechanical skills before all else.


Du Bois was one of the first male civil rights leaders to recognize the problems of gender discrimination. He was among the first men to understand the unique problems of black women, and to value their contributions. He supported the women's suffrage movement and strove to integrate this mostly white struggle. He encouraged many black female writers, artists, poets, and novelists, featuring their works in Crisis and sometimes providing personal financial assistance to them. Several of his novels feature women as prominently as men, an unusual approach for any author of his day. Du Bois spent his life working not just for the equality of all men, but for the equality of all people.

Free At Last
On August 27, 1963, on the eve of the "March On Washington", DuBois died in Accra, Ghana













Links:
Du Bois's First Link
Du Bois's Second Link
Du Bois's Third Link
Du Bois's Fourth Link
Du Bois's Fifth Link
Du Bois's Sixth Link




Works Cited:
Major portions of the above text were directly copied from public domain documents found on the internet.
I have listed those Internet Addresses beneath for you convenience.
http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html
http://members.tripod.com/~DuBois/biog.html
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/dubois.html
http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/dubois_w.htm