W.E.B. DUBOIS
W.E.B. DuBois, or William Edward Burghardt DuBois, was born on February 23,
1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was the only child of Alfred and Mary
Burghardt, who were both of "mixed blood." Since he was born after the abolition of
slavery, he never experienced slavery himself. DuBois grew up in a white, middle class,
puritan community in Great Barrington where he himself could pass as a white person.
His father left his mother soon after his birth and when his mother died in 1884 DuBois
was forced to find work as a timekeeper in a local mill.
DuBois won a scholarship to attend Fisk University in Nashville (1885-1888.) To
help pay for his studies, DuBois taught in rural Tennessee during summer vacations. It is
here that he became acquainted with the “real world” of Jim Crow segregation in the
South.
After graduating in 1885 Du Bois spent two years at the University of Berlin
before returning to the United States. Du Bois now had a strong interest in African
American history and went to Harvard University to work on his dissertation, The
Suppression of the African Slave Trade. In 1895, Du Bois became the first African
American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard.
In 1897 Du Bois began teaching economics and history at Atlanta University and
in 1903 published his ground-breaking The Souls of Black Folks. This included an attack
on Booker T. Washington for not doing more in the campaign for African American civil
rights. In The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois took the position that “the Black men of
America have a duty to perform; a duty stern and delicate—a forward movement to
oppose a part of the work of their greatest leader.”
Du Bois own solution to this problem was to form the Niagara Movement in
1905. The group drew up a plan for aggressive action and demanded: manhood suffrage,
equal economic and educational opportunities, an end to segregation and full civil rights.
DuBois firmly believed that persistent agitation, political action, and academic education
would be the means to achieve full citizenship rights for black Americans. His
educational philosophy directly influenced his political approach. He stressed the
necessity for liberal arts training because he believed that black leadership should come
from college-trained backgrounds. DuBois’ philosophy of the “Talented Tenth” was that
a college-educated elite would chart, through their knowledge, the way for economic and
cultural elevation for the black masses.
The Niagara Movement had little impact on influencing those in power and in
February, 1909, Du Bois joined with other campaigners for African American civil rights
to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The
NAACP was a coalition of black and white radicals which sought to remove legal
barriers to full citizenship for Negroes. The association began an intensive campaign to
bring about the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The NAACP
fought against segregation and discrimination mainly in the courts. The NAACP started
its own magazine, Crisis, in November, 1910. In Crisis Du Bois campaigned against
lynching, Jim Crow laws, sexual inequality. He told his readers in October, 1911, that
"every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women's suffrage." The magazine
soon built up a large readership amongst black people and white readers.
The years from 1901 to 1903 were years of transition in DuBois’ philosophy.
DuBois grew to find Washington’s program intolerable, as he became more outspoken
about racial injustice and began to differ with Washington over the importance of liberal
arts education when the latter’s emphasis on industrial education drew resources away
from black liberal arts colleges. DuBois noted that Washington’s accommodating
program produced little real gain for the race. Another factor that alienated DuBois from
Washington was the fact that Washington and his “Tuskegee Machine”—an intricate,
nation-wide web of institutions in the black community that were conducted, dominated,
and strongly influenced by Washington—kept a dictatorial control over Negro affairs that
stifled honest criticism of his policies and other efforts at Negro advancement. DuBois
came to view Washington as a political boss who had too much power and used it
ruthlessly to his own advantage. Although DuBois admitted that he was worthy of honor,
he believed Washington was a limited and misguided leader. In 1910 Du Bois attacked
Booker T. Washington and his Tuskegee Institute movement and along with twenty-two
other prominent African Americans signed a statement claiming: "We are compelled to
point out that Mr. Washington's large financial responsibilities have made him dependent
on the rich charitable public and that, for this reason, he has for years been compelled to
tell, not the whole truth, but that part of it which certain powerful interests in America
wish to appear as the whole truth."
DuBois felt that Washington's plan to gain equality was only going to further
exacerbate the oppression of African-American's in the United States and more
specifically the South. Instead of a plan of accommodation, DuBois favored a plan of
political action. He believed that African-American's had to speak outright on the
shortcomings that they were held to in the United States. Through DuBois' actions he
helped to teach America that black people were not inferior to whites simply because of
their race.
After years of leadership in the civil rights movement, DuBois simply became
frustrated with the progression of it. In 1952 he decided to devote all of his attention to
various world movements, most specifically the promotion of socialism and eventually
communism. Du Bois joined the Communist Party in 1961 and at the age of 91 moved to
Ghana where he became a naturalized citizen. William DuBois died in Ghana on August
27, 1963. He was honored by a state funeral and buried in Accra.