World of Sociology on William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963), African American scholar, protest leader, and an advocate of pan-Africanism, was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where he grew up. During his youth he did some newspaper reporting. In 1884, he graduated as valedictorian from high school. He got his bachelor of arts from Fisk University in 1888, having spent summers teaching in African American schools in Nashville's rural areas. In 1888 he entered Harvard University as a junior, took a bachelor of arts cum laude in 1890, and was one of six commencement speakers. From 1892 to 1894 he pursued graduate studies in history and economics at the University of Berlin. He served for two years as professor of Greek and Latin at Wilberforce University. In 1891 Du Bois earned his master of arts and in 1895 his doctorate in history from Harvard. In 1896 he married Nina Gomer, and they had two children.
In 1896-1897, Du Bois became assistant instructor in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania where he conducted the pioneering sociological study of an urban community, published as The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899). His dissertation on slavery and this second work assured Du Bois's place among America's leading scholars. Du Bois's life and work were geared toward gaining equal treatment for black people in a world dominated by whites and toward presenting evidence to refute myths of racial inferiority.
In 1905 Du Bois was a founder and general secretary of the Niagara movement, an African American protest group of scholars and professionals. Du Bois founded and edited the Moon (1906) and the Horizon (1907-1910) as organs for the Niagara movement. In 1909 Du Bois was among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and from 1910 to 1934 served it as director of publicity and research, a member of the board of directors, and editor of the Crisis, its monthly magazine.
In the Crisis Du Bois directed a constant stream of agitation at white Americans. Always publishing young African American writers, the Crisis served as a source of inspiration for African Americans. Racial protest during the decade following World War I focused on securing antilynching legislation. During this period the NAACP was the leading protest organization and Du Bois its leading figure.
In 1934 Du Bois left the leadership of the NAACP to begin advocacy of an African American nationalist strategy: African American controlled institutions, schools, and economic cooperatives. This approach opposed the NAACP's commitment to integration. However, he returned to the NAACP from 1944 to 1948, during which time he helped place grievances of African Americans before the United Nations, served as a consultant to the UN founding convention (1945) and wrote the famous "An Appeal to the World" (1947).
Du Bois was a member of the Socialist Party from 1910 to 1912 and always considered himself a socialist. In 1948 he was cochairman of the Council on African Affairs; in 1949 he attended the New York, Paris, and Moscow peace congresses; in 1950 he served as chairman of the Peace Information Center and ran for the U.S. Senate on the American Labor party ticket in New York. Du Bois traveled widely throughout Russia and China in 1958-1959 and in 1961 joined the Communist Party of the United States. He also took up residence in Ghana, Africa, in 1961. In 1900 Du Bois attended the First Pan-African Conference held in London, was elected a vice president, and wrote the "Address to the Nations of the World." In 1911 he attended the First Universal Races Congress in London along with black intellectuals from Africa and the West Indies.
Du Bois organized a series of pan-African congresses around the world, in 1919, 1921, 1923, and 1927. The delegations comprised intellectuals from Africa, the West Indies, and the United States. Though resolutions condemning colonialism and calling for alleviation of the oppression of Africans were passed, little concrete action was taken. The Fifth Congress (1945, Manchester, England) elected Du Bois as chairman, but the power was clearly in the hands of younger activists. Du Bois's final pan-African gesture was to take up citizenship in Ghana in 1961 at the request of President Kwame Nkrumah and to begin work as director of the Encyclopedia Africana.
Du Bois's most lasting contribution is his writing. He wrote 21 books and published over 100 essays. From 1897 to 1910 Du Bois served as professor of economics and history at Atlanta University, where he organized conferences titled the Atlanta University Studies of the Negro Problem and edited or coedited 16 of the annual publications, on such topics as The Negro in Business (1899), The Negro Artisan (1902), The Negro Church (1903), Economic Cooperation among Negro Americans (1907), and The Negro American Family (1908). He wrote The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (1903), an outstanding collection of essays, and John Brown (1909), a sympathetic biography.
Du Bois also wrote two novels, a book of essays and poetry, and two histories of black people. From 1934 to 1944 Du Bois was chairman of the department of sociology at Atlanta University. In 1940 he founded Phylon, a social science quarterly. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935), perhaps his most significant historical work, details the role of African Americans in American society, during the Reconstruction period.
Black Folk, Then and Now (1939) is an elaboration of the history of black people in Africa and the New World. Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (1945) is a brief call for the granting of independence to Africans, and The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (1947) anticipates many later scholarly conclusions regarding African history and culture.
Du Bois received honorary degrees, was a fellow and life member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Du Bois died in Ghana on August 27, 1963, on the eve of the civil rights march in Washington, D.C.
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