page_title: W. E. B. Du Bois
section_title: Honors
hierarchical_section_title: W. E. B. Du Bois / Honors
caption_attribution_description: English: Clark Atlanta University
context_page_description: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909.
  Before that, Du Bois had risen to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists that wanted equal rights for blacks. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta compromise, an agreement crafted by Booker T. Washington which provided that Southern blacks would work and submit to white political rule, while Southern whites guaranteed that blacks would receive basic educational and economic opportunities.
context_section_description: The NAACP awarded the Spingarn Medal to Du Bois in 1920.
  Du Bois was inducted into the Fisk University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa when he returned to campus to receive an honorary degree in 1958.
  Du Bois was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize by the USSR in 1959.
  The site of the house where Du Bois grew up in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
  In 1992, the United States Postal Service honored Du Bois with his portrait on a postage stamp. A second stamp of face value 32¢ was issued on February 3, 1998 as part of the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series.
  In 1994, the main library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was named after Du Bois. He transferred his papers to the university by his literary executor, historian Herbert Aptheker.
  In 2000, Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African & African American Research began awarding the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal, which is considered Harvard's highest honor in the field of African and African American studies.
  A dormitory was named after Du Bois at the University of Pennsylvania, where he conducted field research for his sociological study The Philadelphia Negro.
  A dormitory is named after Du Bois at Hampton University.
  Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience was inspired by and dedicated to Du Bois by its editors Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
  Humboldt University in Berlin hosts a series of lectures named in Du Bois's honor.
  Scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Du Bois in his 2002 list of the 100 Greatest African Americans.
  In 2005, Du Bois was honored with a medallion in The Extra Mile, Washington DC's memorial to important American volunteers.
  The highest career award given by the American Sociological Association, the W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, has been renamed after Du Bois in 2006.
  The Episcopal Church at its 2009 General Convention approved an annual commemoration of Du Bois on August 3.
  Du Bois was appointed Honorary Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012.
  A bust was commissioned from Ayokunle Odeleye to honor Du Bois, and dedicated on the Clark Atlanta University on the anniversary of his birth, February 23, 2013 (pictured right).
  In March 2018, W.E.B. Du Bois was awarded Grand Prix de la Mémoire for the GPLA 2017.
caption: Bust of W. E. B. Du Bois at Clark Atlanta University
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