W.E.B.+Du+Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois



William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. This town had a very small black population, but he was still subject to the sting of racism, which shaped his childhood. When he entered high school, Du Bois showed interest in the betterment of his race, and at age 15 he became a correspondent to [|The New York Globe.] He was very smart, and at the end of his high school years, aspired to attend Harvard. Unfortunately he was unable to do so and attended Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee on scholarship. The move to the South really exposed Du Bois to the discrimination of blacks. Upon graduating from Fisk, he gained scholarships to Harvard where he furthered his studies in economic and social problems. He was the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard. Shortly before getting his masters degree, DuBois applied directly to Rutherford B. Hayes himself for funding to study abroad. He spent the next two years at The University of Berlin in Germany. Du Bois became a known scholar and writer, and it was through these mediums that he spoke out against discrimination.

W.E.B. Du Bois had a different approach to gaining liberties than his contemporary, Booker T. Washington, who believed that Blacks needed to put stress on gaining jobs and education, before other equalities. However, Du Bois believed that civil liberties were the forerunner to other and equal opportunities. In fact, Du Bois's book, [|The Souls of Black Folk]he criticized Washington's ideas and demanded equal rights for African Americans. He believed that political and social rights would come before economic independence. in 1905, Du Bois and his contemporaries started the [|Niagara Movement]to discuss a plan of action for securing equal rights for blacks. Three years later, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, Du Bois and members of the Niagara Movement, as well as white progressives began the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ([|NAACP]), whose mission was to abolish all forms of segregation and increase educational opportunities for African American youth. A Mere ten years later, this was America's largest civil right's organization, and had more than one hundred thousand members.

On August 27, 1963 Du Bois passed away in Accra, Ghana.

SOURCES AMSCO http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html American History Textbook