W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois. Author, Lecturer, and Civil Rights Leader. , William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is considered the most influential African American thinker of the first half of the 20th century., Born and raised in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois was largely educated in Cambridge. Blacks were not welcome in Harvard dormitories at that time, so he found a room at this house on Flagg Street, which was owned by Mary Taylor, a widow of Jamaican Maroon descent., Du Bois matriculated as a junior, having received a B.A. degree in 1888 from Fisk University in Nashville. He graduated with honors in 1890 and spent the summer lecturing with his classmate Clement Morgan, with whom he had studied at Maria Baldwin's house on Prospect Street. Du Bois received a master's degree the next year, and in 1895, after two years at the University of Berlin, became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard., Du Bois gained national attention for his role in the Black Protest movement. In 1903, while teaching at Atlanta University, he wrote The Souls of Black Folk, a treatise on race relations that criticized the conservative policies of Booker T. Washington, the leading spokesperson for African Americans. The opposition to Washington coalesced in the Niagara Movement, which Du Bois organized in 1905 with a group that included his classmate Clement Morgan and Cantabrigian Emery T. Morris. Du Boise was the general secretary of the organization until its demise in 1909., In 1909, Du Bois cofounded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), an interracial organization dedicated to the same aims as the Niagara Movement. The only African American on its executive board, he served as the editor of its magazine, The Crisis. Du Bois wrote countless books and articles on the African American condition and frequently lectured around the world., In 1961, Du Bois moved to Accra, Ghana, at the invitation of its president, Kwame Nkruma. He died there on August 27, 1963, at the age of ninety-five, and received a state funeral., Related Cambridge African American Trail Markers , Maria Baldwin, 196 Prospect Street , William H. Lewis, 226 Upland Road , Clement G. Morgan, 265 Prospect Street , Emery T. Morris, 30 Parker Street, Sources , Herbert Aptheker, ed., The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois, 1973-1978 , W.E.B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois, 1968 , Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, 1982 , Mark Safford, W.E.B. Du Bois, 1989 (photo)