W.E.B. DuBois (February 23, 1868 to August 27, 1963)
Scholar, Editor and Founding Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Portrait of W.E.B. DuBois
Introduction: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a noted scholar, editor, and African American activist. Du Bois was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) — the largest and oldest civil rights organization in America. Throughout his life Du Bois fought discrimination and racism. He made significant contributions to debates about race, politics, and history in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, primarily through his writing and impassioned speaking on race relations. DuBois also served as editor of The Crisis magazine and published several scholarly works on race and African American history. By the time he died, in 1963, he had written 17 books, edited four journals and played a key role in reshaping black-white relations in America.
Education and Career: DuBois first came face to face with the realities of racism in 19th century America while attending Fisk University, a black institution in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated in 1888. In 1895 DuBois was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Havard University. His doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870, was published in 1896. In 1897, DuBois took a position with Atlanta University. During his tenure there he conducted extensive studies of the social conditions of blacks in America. Although Du Bois took an advanced degree in history, he was broadly trained in the social sciences; and, at a time when sociologists were theorizing about race relations, he was conducting empirical inquiries into the condition of blacks. For more than a decade he devoted himself to sociological investigations of blacks in America, producing 16 research monographs published between 1897 and 1914 at Atlanta (Georgia) University, where he was a professor, as well as The Philadelphia Negro; A Social Study (1899), the first case study of a black community in the United States.
For the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, DuBois created a full-scale exhibit of African American achievement since the Emancipation Proclamation in industrial work, literature, and journalism. It included photo-documentation on educational institutions such as Tuskeegee, Fisk, and Howard Universities. Congress approved of $15,000 for installation, and it was installed — off the midway and in the Social Economy section of the Liberal Arts building where it languished. In 1903 he wrote The Souls of Black Folk which serves as the underpinning to many of his ideas. Two years later, in 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the “Niagara Movement,” which was dedicated chiefly to attacking the platform of Booker T. Washington. This small organization met annually until it disbanded in 1909. Despite the establishment of 30 branches and the achievement of a few scattered civil-rights victories at the local level, the Niagara Movement suffered from organizational weakness and lack of funds as well as a permanent headquarters or staff, and it never was able to attract mass support. Nevertheless, the Niagara Movement was significant as an ideological forerunner and direct inspiration for the interracial National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent part in the creation of the NAACP and became the association’s director of research and editor of its magazine, The Crisis. In this role he wielded an unequaled influence among middle-class blacks and progressive whites as the propagandist for the black protest from 1910 until 1934.
Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, W.E.B. DuBois continued to work as an author, lecturer and educator. His teachings were an important influence on the Civil Rights Movement. Ironically, DuBois died on August 27, 1963 the eve of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom . Actor and playwright Ossie Davis read an announcement of his death to the 250,000 people gathered at the Washington Monument on August 28th.
W.E.B. DuBois and Mary White Ovington Medallion
W.E.B. DuBois and Mary White Ovington co-founders of the NAACP in 1909 have been memorialized with a plaque in the The Extra Mile — Points of Light Volunteer Pathway located on the sidewalks of downtown Washington, D.C. The Extra Mile is a program of Points of Light Institute, dedicated to inspire, mobilize and equip individuals to volunteer and serve. The Extra Mile was approved by Congress and the District of Columbia. It is funded entirely by private sources.
