W. E. B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (/duːˈbɔɪs/ doo-BOYSS; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) na he be an American sociologist, socialist, historian, den Pan-Africanist civil rights activist

Na dem born am insyd Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grow up insyd a relatively tolerant den integrated community. After he plete ein graduate work for de Friedrich Wilhelm University insyd Berlin den Harvard University, wer na he be ein first African American make he earn a doctorate, na Du Bois rise to national prominence as a leader of de Niagara Movement, a group of black civil rights activists wey dey seek equal rights. Na Du Bois den ein supporters oppose de Atlanta Compromise. Instead, na Du Bois insist on full civil rights den increased political representation, wich na he believe dem go bring about by de African-American intellectual elite. Na he refer to dis group as de talented tenth, a concept under de umbrella of racial uplift, wey he believe dat African Americans need de chance for advanced education to develop dema leadership.

Na Du Bois be one of de founders of de National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) insyd 1909. Na Du Bois use ein position insyd de NAACP make he respond to racist incidents. After de First World War, na he attend de Pan-African Congresses, na he embrace socialism wey he cam turn a professor for Atlanta University. Once na de Second World War end, he engage insyd peace activism wey na he be targeted by de Federal Bureau of Investigation. Na he spend de last years of ein life insyd Ghana wey he die insyd Accra on August 27, 1963.

Na Du Bois be a prolific author. Na he primarily target racism plus ein writing, wich na he protest strongly against lynching, Jim Crow laws, den racial discrimination insyd important social institutions. Na ein cause include people of color everywer, particularly Africans den Asians insyd colonies. Na he be a proponent of Pan-Africanism wey na he help organize chaw meetings of de Pan-African Congress make e fight for de independence of African colonies from European powers. Na Du Bois make chaw trips to Europe, Africa den Asia. Ein collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, be a seminal work insyd African-American literature; den ein 1935 magnum opus, Black Reconstruction in America, challenge de prevailing orthodoxy wey na blacks be responsible for de failures of de Reconstruction era. Dey borrow a phrase from Frederick Douglass, na he popularize de use of de term color line make e represent de injustice of de separate buh equal doctrine prevalent insyd American social den political life. Dem dey ein 1940 autobiography Dusk of Dawn in part as one of de first scientific treatises insyd de field of American sociology. Insyd ein role as editor of de NAACP ein journal The Crisis, na he publish chaw influential pieces. Na Du Bois believe dat capitalism be a primary cause of racism wey na he be sympathetic to socialist causes.

 Early life 

 Family den kiddie 
Na dem born Du Bois on February 23, 1868, insyd Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Alfred den Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois. Na Mary Silvina Burghardt ein family be part of de very small free black population of Great Barrington wey na she own land insyd de state longest. Na she descend from Dutch, African, den English ancestors. Na William Du Bois ein maternal great-great-grandpoppie be Tom Burghardt, a slave (dem born insyd West Africa around 1730) wey na dem hold am by de Dutch colonist Conraed Burghardt. Na Tom briefly serve insyd de Continental Army during de American Revolutionary War, wich fi be dat be how he gain ein freedom during de late 18th century. Na ein son Jack Burghardt be de poppie of Othello Burghardt, wey in turn be de poppie of Mary Silvina Burghardt.
alt=A photograph of Du Bois as an infant being held by his mother|left|thumb|Du Bois as an infant plus ein mommie

 University education 
Na he rely on dis money wey be donated by neighbors, Du Bois attend Fisk University, a historically black college insyd Nashville, Tennessee, from 1885 to 1888. Like oda Fisk students wey na dem rely on summer den intermittent teaching make e support dema university studies, na Du Bois teach school during de summer of 1886 after ein sophomore year. Na ein travel to den residency insyd de South be Du Bois ein first experience plus Southern racism, wich for de time encompassed Jim Crow laws, bigotry, suppression of black voting, den lynchings; na de lattermost reach a peak insyd de next decade.

After na he receive ein bachelor's degree from Fisk University, Du Bois attend Harvard College (wich na e no dey accept course credits from Fisk) from 1888 to 1890, wey he cam turn de sixth admitted African American insyd ein history. Na he be strongly influenced by professor William James, prominent insyd American philosophy. Na Du Bois pay ein way thru three years at Harvard plus money from summer jobs, an inheritance, scholarships, den loans from paddies. Insyd 1890, na Harvard award Du Bois ein second bachelor's degree, cum laude. Insyd 1891, Du Bois receive a scholarship make he attend de sociology graduate school at Harvard.

Insyd 1892, Du Bois receive a fellowship from de John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen make he attend Friedrich Wilhelm University for graduate work. While a student insyd Berlin, he travel extensively thru out Europe. He intellectually cam of age insyd de German capital while na he dey study plus sam of dat nation ein most prominent social scientists, wey dey include Gustav von Schmoller, Adolph Wagner, den Heinrich von Treitschke. Na he sanso meet Max Weber wey a he be highly impressed plus Du Bois wey he later cite Du Bois as a counter-example to racists wey dey allege de inferiority of Blacks. Weber san meet Du Bois insyd 1904 on a visit to de US just ahead of de publication of de seminal The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

 Atlanta University 

Insyd July 1897, na Du Bois lef Philadelphia wey he take a professorship insyd history den economics at de historically black Atlanta University insyd Georgia. Na ein first major academic work be ein book The Philadelphia Negro (1899), a detailed den comprehensive sociological study of de African-American people of Philadelphia, based on ein fieldwork insyd 1896–1897. Na dis breakthru insyd scholarship be de first scientific study of African Americans den a major contribution to early scientific sociology insyd de U.S.

 First Pan-African Conference 
Na Du Bois attend de First Pan-African Conference, na dem hold insyd London on July 23–25, 1900. Na de Conference be organized by people wey komot de Caribbean: Haitians Anténor Firmin den Benito Sylvain den Trinidadian barrister Henry Sylvester Williams. Na Du Bois close de conference by he deliver a speech dem entitle "To the Nations of the World", insyd wich na he ask European leaders make dem ensure equal opportunity give all races, make dem allow dema colonies de right to self-government, den to recognise de political den human rights of African Americans. Na dis cam amidst a period insyd wich na southern states dey pass legislation make e effectively prevent African Americans from voting, an exclusion from de political system wey na e last til de 1960s.

 1900 Paris Exposition 

 Booker T. Washington den de Atlanta Compromise 
 Niagara Movement 
 The Souls of Black Folk 

 Racial violence 

 Academic work 

 Honors den legacy 

 Na de NAACP award de Spingarn Medal to Du Bois insyd 1920.
 Insyd 1958, na dem induct Du Bois into de Fisk University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa wen na he return to campus make he receive an honorary degree.
 Insyd 1959, na dem award Du Bois de International Lenin Peace Prize by de USSR.
 Insyd 1975, de W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, later part of de Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, na dem establish at Harvard University.
 De site of de house wer na Du Bois grow up insyd Great Barrington, Massachusetts, na dem designate a National Historic Landmark insyd 1976.Savage, Beth, (1994), African American Historic Places, John Wiley and Sons, p. 277.

 Insyd 1992, na de United States Postal Service honor Du Bois plus ein portrait on a postage stamp.Sama, Dominic, "New U.S. Issue Honors W. E. B. Du Bois", Chicago Tribune, February 2, 1992. Retrieved November 20, 2011. Na dem issue a second stamp of face value 32¢ on February 3, 1998, as part of de Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series.
 Insyd 1994, na dem name de main library at de University of Massachusetts Amherst give Du Bois. Na he transfer ein papers to de university via ein literary executor, historian Herbert Aptheker.Han, John J. (2007), "W. E. B. Du Bois", in Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 181.
 Insyd 2000, Harvard ein Hutchins Center for African & African American Research begin dey award de W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, wich dem consider Harvard ein highest honor insyd de field of African and African American studies.

 Na dem name a dormitory give Du Bois at de University of Pennsylvania, wer na he conduct field research for ein sociological study The Philadelphia Negro."The History of W. E. B. Du Bois College House" Archived January 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
 Na dem name a dormitory give Du Bois at Hampton University.
 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience na e be inspired by den dedicated to Du Bois by ein editors Kwame Anthony Appiah den Henry Louis Gates Jr.Bloom, Harold (2001), W. E. B. Du Bois, Infobase Publishing, p. 244.

 De Humboldt University of Berlin dey host a series of lectures dem name insyd ein honor."W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures" Archived February 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Humboldt University. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
 Na Scholar Molefi Kete Asante list Du Bois insyd ein 2002 list of de 100 Greatest African Americans.Asante, Molefi Kete (2002), 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Prometheus Books, pp. 114–116.
 Insyd 2005, na dem honour Du Bois plus a medallion insyd The Extra Mile, Washington DC's memorial to important American volunteers."Noteworthy", The Crisis, November/December 2005, p. 64.
 Na de highest career award wey be given by de American Sociological Association, de W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, na dem rename give Du Bois insyd 2006.

 Na dem appoint Du Bois Honorary Emeritus Professor at de University of Pennsylvania insyd 2012."Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois: Honorary Emeritus Professorship of Sociology and Africana Studies", The University of Pennsylvania Almanac, Volume 58, No. 21, February 7, 2012."W. E. B. Du Bois receives honorary emeritus professorship", The Daily Pennsylvanian, February 19, 2012.
 Na dem commission a bust from Ayokunle Odeleye make dem honor Du Bois, wey na e be dedicated on de Clark Atlanta University on de anniversary of ein birth, February 23, 2013.

 Insyd 2015, na dem found de Du Bois Orchestra at Harvard.

 Insyd March 2018, na dem award Du Bois Grand Prix de la Mémoire for de Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2017.Tientcheu, Marchelo (March 29, 2018), "Cameroun/Littérature: WEB du Bois, Grand Prix de la Mémoire aux GPAL 2017" Archived December 17, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Lebledparle.com.
 Na dem feature Du Bois as a character insyd de 2020 Netflix miniseries Self Made, wey Cornelius Smith Jr. portray.
 Insyd 2023 na de government of Ghana sign a Memorandum of Understanding plus de W.E.B Du Bois Museum Foundation make dem develop, rebrand, operate den manage de W. E. B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture into a major new educational complex to preserve den continue Du Bois ein legacy. Insyd 2024, na de Mellon Foundation announce a US$5 million grant make dem provide leadership funds for four years insyd Phase 1 of de new complex ein development.
 Na dem name de W. E. B. Du Bois Center at de University of Virginia give am.

Works dem select

Non-fiction books
 The Study of the Negro Problems (1898)
 The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
 The Negro in Business (1899)
 The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
 "The Talented Tenth", second chapter of The Negro Problem, a collection of articles by African Americans (September 1903)
 Voice of the Negro II (September 1905)
 John Brown (1909)
 Efforts for Social Betterment among Negro Americans (1909)
 Atlanta University's Studies of the Negro Problem (1897–1910)
 The Negro (1915)
 The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America (1924)
 Africa, Its Geography, People and Products (1930)
 Africa: Its Place in Modern History (1930)
 Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
 What the Negro Has Done for the United States and Texas (1936)
 Black Folk, Then and Now (1939)
 Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (1945)
 The Encyclopedia of the Negro (1946)
 The World and Africa (1946)
 The World and Africa, an Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (1947)
 Peace Is Dangerous (1951)
 I Take My Stand for Peace (1951)
 In Battle for Peace (1952)
 Africa in Battle Against Colonialism, Racialism, Imperialism (1960)

 Articles 







 Autobiographies 

 Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920)
 Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1940)
 The Autobiography of W. E. Burghardt Du Bois (1968)

 Novels 

 The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911)
 Dark Princess: A Romance (1928)
 The Black Flame Trilogy:
 The Ordeal of Mansart (1957)
 Mansart Builds a School (1959)
 Worlds of Color (1961)

 Archives of The Crisis 
Na Du Bois edit The Crisis from 1910 to 1933, wey e dey contain chaw of ein important polemics.

 Archives of The Crisis at the University of Tulsa: Modernist Journals Collection
 Archives of The Crisis at Brown University
 Issues of The Crisis at Google Books

 Recordings 

 Socialism and the American Negro (1960); Archived September 30, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
 W. E. B. Du Bois: A Recorded Autobiography, Interview with Moses Asch (1961); Archived November 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine

 Dissertations 

 The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638–1870 (Ph.D. dissertation), Harvard Historical Studies, Longmans, Green, and Co. (1896)

 Speeches 




 References 

Sources


 Horne, Gerald (2010), W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography, Greenwood Press, .
 Johnson, Brian (2008), W. E. B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism, 1868–1934, Rowman & Littlefield, .


 Lomotey, Kofi (2009), Encyclopedia of African American Education, Volume 1, Sage, .
 Marable, Manning (2005), W. E. B. Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat, Paradigm Publishers, .
 Rabaka, Reiland (2009), Du Bois's Dialectics: Black Radical Politics and the Reconstruction of Critical Social Theory, Lexington Books, .
 Young, Mary, and Horne, Gerald, eds. (2001), W. E. B. Du Bois: An Encyclopedia, Greenwood Publishing Group, .

Read further


 Broderick, Francis L. (1959), W. E. B. Du Bois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, Stanford University Press. ASIN B000X665SM.
 Bulmer, Martin (1991). "W. E. B. Du Bois as a Social Investigator: The Philadelphia Negro, 1899", in Martin Bulmer, Kevin Bales, and Kathryn Kish Sklar, eds. The Social Survey in Historical Perspective, 1880–1940 pp. 170–188.
 Crouch, Stanley and Playthell Benjamin (2002), Reconsidering the Souls of Black Folk, Running Press.
 Dorrien, Gary (2015). The New Abolition: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. .
 Getachew, Adom; Pitts, Jennifer (eds.). 2022. W. E. B. Du Bois: International Thought. Cambridge University Press.

 Gooding-Williams, Robert (2009), In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America, Harvard University Press. .
 Holt, Thomas C. "Du Bois, W. E. B." in American National Biography Online (2000).
 Hubbard, Dolan (ed.) (2003). The Souls of Black Folk: One Hundred Years Later, University of Missouri Press. .

 Lewis, David Levering (1994), W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919, Owl Books. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft Prize, and the Francis Parkman Prize. .
 Lewis, David Levering (2001), W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919–1963, Owl Books. Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. .
 Lewis, David Levering, and Deborah Willis (2005), A Small Nation of People: W. E. B. Du Bois and African American Portraits of Progress, HarperCollins. .
 Meier, August (1963), Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washington, University of Michigan Press. .

 Mullen, Bill V. (2015). Un-American: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World Revolution. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. .
 Mullen, Bill V. (2016). W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line. London, UK: Pluto Press. .

 Rampersad, Arnold (1976), The Art and Imagination of W. E. B. Du Bois, Harvard University Press. .

 Rudwick, Elliott M. (1968), W. E. B. Du Bois: Propagandist of the Negro Protest, University of Pennsylvania Press, .
 Shaw, Stephanie J. (2013), W. E. B. Du Bois and "The Souls of Black Folk". Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. .
 Sterne, Emma Gelders (1971), His Was the Voice: The Life of W. E. B. Du Bois, Crowell-Collier Press. Book for children.
 Sundquist, Eric J. (1996) (Ed.), The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois Reader, Oxford University Press. .
 Williams, Chad L. The Wounded World: WEB DuBois and the First World War (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). 

 Wolfenstein, Eugene Victor (2007), A Gift of the Spirit: Reading The Souls of Black Folk, Cornell University Press, 2007. .
 Wright, William D. (1985), The Socialist Analysis of W. E. B. Du Bois, Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo.
 Zuckerman, Phil (2000), Du Bois on Religion, Rowman & Littlefield. A collection of Du Bois's writings on religion. .

 Documentaries 

 Massiah, Louis (producer and director), W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices, documentary movie, 1996, California Newsreel

 External links 

 W. E. B. Du Bois National Historic Site
 Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
 W. E. B. Du Bois: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
 "Writings of B. Washington and Du Bois" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History
 Audio of W. E. B. Du Bois lecturing on "Socialism and the American Negro", April 9, 1960, on YouTube
 W.E.B. Du Bois Papers held by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Special Collections and University Archives
 W. E. B. Dubois Collection in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
 FBI files on DuBois released under the Freedom of Information Act in The Vault, FBI electronic reading room

 Online editions 

 Works by or about W. E. B. Du Bois at the Internet Archive
 Works by W. E. B. Du Bois at Project Gutenberg
 Works by W. E. B. Du Bois in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
 Works by W. E. B. Du Bois at FRASER
 Works by W. E. B. Du Bois at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 


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