"Peace will be my reward."
FREEDOM HERO:
W.E.B. DUBOIS
by Jennifer Beck
The first African-American to earn a PhD from Harvard, a founding
member of the NAACP, and one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th
century, W.E.B. DuBois' life-long fight for racial equality earned him a
lasting and important place in this country's history.
William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois was born in Great Barrington,
Massachusetts, in 1868. His parents, Alfred and Mary DuBois, split up
when he was quite young, and William worked in a factory to help make
ends meet. Despite the demanding job, he was consistently at the top of
his class and even published a story in the community's newspaper at the
age of 14. At 15, W.E.B. DuBois became the first black child ever to
graduate from Great Barrington High. It would be just one of many 'firsts'
yet to come for the future political leader. Upon graduating, Dubois
headed for Nashville, Tennessee, where he'd received a partial
scholarship to Frisk University. In 1888, Dubois graduated and left for
Europe to attend the University of Berlin, also on scholarship. Two years
later, Dubois found himself at Harvard where he earned a second B.A.
then a master's degree and finally his PhD, in 1895. He was the first black
American ever to receive a PhD from Harvard, and his dissertation, "The
Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America,"is
still considered an outstanding example of historiography.
Having grown up in the North, DuBois had never experienced the extreme
racism rampant in the South in that era. As a teacher at Atlanta University,
he saw racism at its ugliest and most virulent. The cross burning and
lynching carried out by such groups as the Ku Klux Klan enraged him. He
took on the hate groups the best way he knew how--by using his mind. He
taught classes and published papers and books that explored and
confronted Southern society, hoping to bring about change through social
science. During this time, DuBois also married Nina Gomer, who would
bear him two children, Yolande and Burghardt, who died at the age of
three. DuBois expressed his sadness, rage and frustration over his son's
death in what many consider his greatest work, "The Souls of Black Folk"
(1903).
By the turn of the century, DuBois had grown frustrated with trying to fight
racism through writing and teaching. He became an activist, touring the
country and speaking out that racial equality should be immediate, not
gradual. He encouraged agitation and protest and publicly criticized such
black leaders as Booker T. Washington for not being radical enough.
Many of the protests organized by DuBois turned violent. DuBois neither
condoned nor condemned it.
In 1905, DuBois founded The Niagara Movement, a
group of pioneering African- American scholars and
leaders that would eventually become The National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP). DuBois created and edited the NAACP
journal, "The Crisis," from 1910 until he left the
group in 1934.
Following his departure, DuBois moved steadily to
the political left. He became involved with
progressive socialist activists which blamed
capitalism for the nation's racial inequality, calling it
the true oppressor of African- Americans. Before
long, DuBois was being spied upon and even
antagonized by an American government suspicious
of his leftist leanings. When DuBois called upon the
United Nations to hear crimes of the U.S.
government against its own people, the U.S.
government retaliated by indicting him under the
McCarran Act. (McCarran was part of a long list of
legislation aimed at curbing personal and intellectual
freedoms.) With the help of his followers and various
human rights organizations, DuBois was eventually
cleared of the charges. And then, he cleared out of America.
In 1961, W.E.B. DuBois officially joined
the Communist party and departed the
United States never to return. Two years
later, he gave up his U.S. citizenship and
became a citizen of Ghana. On August 27,
1963, William Edward Burghardt DuBois
died at the age of 95. He was given a
funeral fit for a head of state attended by
dignitaries from around the world. The
U.S. government, however, sent no one.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been
quoted as saying "History cannot ignore
W.E.B. Dubois." Recognition from the U.S.
government or any other source had never
been W.E.B. DuBois' goal. As DuBois
himself said not long before his death,
"Peace will be my reward."
Written by Jennifer Beck