Black history fact #13

William Edward Burghardt Dubois, best known as W. E. B. DuBois, (1868 - 1963) was an American sociologist, educator, writer, and civil rights activist. In 1895, he became the first black American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University. Not long after, in 1899, DuBois published the first case study of the black American community, "The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study." He fought for equality for black Americans and publicly criticized those who asserted black people accept less than full and equal rights, as granted by the 14th Amendment. In 1903, he published his most famous work "The Souls of Black Folk," a poignant collection of 14 essays in which he defined some of the key themes of the black experience in the US. He was one of the cofounders of the NAACP in 1909 and for a time edited its monthly magazine, the

Crisis

. Interspersed with this writing and activism, Dubois taught at Wilberforce University and Atlanta University. A proponent of Pan-Africanism, he helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to free African colonies from European powers. Shortly before his death in 1963, DuBois was living in Accra, Ghana working on an encyclopedia of the African Diaspora.

Thank you W. E. B. DuBois for your vision and hard work!