W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt (W. E. B.) Du Bois was an African-American leader, writer, educator, and scholar. Born in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he graduated from Fisk University in Nashville Tennessee in 1888. Du Bois moved on to Harvard University, but Harvard refused to recognize the equivalency of his Fisk degree and he was forced to repeat his undergraduate studies, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1890.
Du Bois received a stipend to study at the University of Berlin, and traveled extensively through Europe before he returned to Harvard to complete his doctorate in 1895. He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard.
While working as a university professor, Du Bois published numerous books, including three major autobiographies. He emerged as the intellectual leader and perhaps the most prominent political activist on behalf of African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century.
Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He left his university position to become its publications director and editor of its monthly magazine, The Crisis.
Unlike Booker T. Washington, the renowned author and educator, Du Bois argued that African Americans should pursue higher education rather than vocational education and challenge white authority rather than seek accommodations. By 1963, frustrated with the lack of progress in the United States and impressed by developments in Africa, Du Bois became a citizen of Ghana (he was a dual citizen of the United States). He died later that year.
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