W.E.B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, better known as W.E.B. Du Bois, was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. While growing up in a mostly white town, W.E.B. Du Bois identified himself as mulatto, but freely attended school with whites and was enthusiastically supported in his academic studies by his white teachers. In 1885, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend Fisk University. It was there that he first encountered Jim Crow laws. For the first time, he began analyzing the deep troubles of American racism.

After earning his bachelor's degree at Fisk, Du Bois enrolled at Harvard University. He paid his way with money from summer jobs, scholarships and loans from friends. After completing his master's degree, he was selected for a study-abroad program at the University of Berlin. While in Germany, he studied with some of the most prominent social scientists of his day and was exposed to political perspectives that he used for the remainder of his life.

Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895, and went on to enroll as a doctoral student at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität (now Humboldt-Universität).

In 1899, W.E.B. Du Bois published the first case study of an African American community: “The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study”. In the study, he coined the phrase "the talented tenth," a term that described the likelihood of one in 10 black men becoming leaders of their race.

While working as a professor at Atlanta University, W.E.B. Du Bois rose to national prominence when he very publicly opposed Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise," an agreement that stated that professional education for blacks was more valuable to them than social advantages like higher education or political office. Du Bois criticized Washington for not demanding equality for African Americans, as granted by the 14th Amendment. Du Bois fought what he believed was an inferior strategy, subsequently becoming a spokesperson for full and equal rights in every realm of a person's life.

In the years following, W.E.B. Du Bois adamantly opposed the idea of biological white superiority and vocally supported women's rights. In 1909, he co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which is now the largest and oldest civil rights organization in the United States, and served as editor of its monthly magazine, “The Crisis”.

A proponent of Pan-Africanism, Du Bois helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to free African colonies from European powers. Pan-Africanism is an ideology that encourages the unity of Africans worldwide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress. It aims to uplift and unify people of African descent. The idea behind it is “the fate of all African peoples and countries are intertwined…African peoples, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.”

W.E.B. Du Bois died on August 27, 1963, one day before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, at the age of 95 in Accra, Ghana while working on an encyclopedia of the African Diaspora.