WEB Du Bois
5.04 Compare and contrast
the African American
political and legal
personalities of the time
period and their impact on
American society.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Born in Great Barrington Massachusetts on
February 23, 1868
Later that year his father left town and never
returned
Du Bois studied and worshipped with whites
He was the first African-American to graduate
from his high school; he did so with high
honors in 1884
His mother died in 1885
Great Barrington, Massachusetts
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Whites from Great Barrington churches paid
for Du Bois’s schooling
He wanted to attend Harvard but chose instead
to attend Fisk, one of the top black colleges in
the US
In the South Du Bois encountered violent
racism and found himself with new
understanding of black poverty and suffering
Writes on the economic basis of racism in
rural Tennessee
Fisk University
Jubilee hall is the oldest building of higher
education for African-Americans.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Graduated from Fisk in 1888, enrolled in
Harvard
Received second bachelor’s and continued
graduate study in history
William James, George Santana, Albert
Bushnell Hart, and Frank Taussig mentored
Du Bois in philosophy, history, and economics
In 1892 Du Bois traveled to Berlin to study
sociology and economics at Fredrich Wilhelm
University
19th Century Picture: African-Americans Voting
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Used immense intelligence to assault white
supremacy upon return to Harvard
Du Bois became the first African-American to
earn a Ph.D. in history from Harvard
His thesis was The Suppression of the African
Slave Trade to the United States
After a year of research in Philadelphia he
writes The Philadelphia Negro
Between 1897 and 1903 has many essays
published
Paris Exhibition
Du Bois displayed hundreds of pictures of
black doctors, lawyers, and ‘normal folk.”
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Souls of Black Folk
1903 writes landmark at age 35
In 1903 there were 8 million AfricanAmericans
Describes ‘veil’ separating black and white life
Describes ‘two-ness’ of being black yet
American
Metaphor used by James Weldon Johnson’s
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Toni
Morrison’s Beloved
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXE93piq0o4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXQqGs_Fk4&feature=related
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Niagara Movement formed to ensure civil rights
Founds NAACP and publishes The Crisis
The Crisis was one part shared outrage at
injustice and one part high black art and
education
Du Bois went to the Paris Peace Conference to
champion the rights of Africans and AfricanAmericans
Du Bois traveled to the USSR to ‘look into’
socialism; many in the NAACP were outraged
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
A conflict with NAACP secretary Walter
White leads to Du Bois’s resignation in 1934
Attempts to complete The Encyclopedia of the
Negro (later titled Encyclopedia Africana)
Efforts increased to fight colonial imperialism
Completes Reconstruction in America, Black
Folk: Then and Now, Dusk of Dawn, An
Autobiography of a Concept of Race, Color
and Democracy: Colonies and Peace, and
The World and Africa
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Accepts Kwame Nkrumah’s invitation and
moves to the African country of Ghana
The day before the March on Washington
(1963) Du Bois dies at the age of 94
Martin Luther King Jr. takes over as the most
influential black political leader in the world!
The Encyclopedia Africana was completed by
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kwame Anthony
Appiah in 1999
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Bibliography
Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois:
Biography of a Race, 1868-1919. N.Y.
Henry Holt, 1993
_____. The Fight for Equality and the
American Century, 1919-1963. N.Y
Henry Holt, 2000.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Cornell West.
The African-American Century, N.Y. The
Free Press, 2000.
Summertime
performed by
Miles Davis.
1. Who invited WEB DuBois to live in Ghana?
2. When did DuBois die?
3. Who helped Kwame Anthony Appiah complete
the Encyclopedia Africana?
4. Why did DuBois resign the NAACP?
5. What DuBois’s landmark (published 1903)?
6. What metaphor does DuBois use to explain the
separation between black and white life?
7. Where did DuBois get his first undergraduate
degree?
Ec. Concerning Harvard how
does DuBois’s degree differ from BTW’s?