Biography - BW - W.E.B. Du Bois - African-American writer, teacher and protest leader

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• published: 28 May 2013
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Today we tell about W.E.B. Du Bois. He was an African-American writer, teacher and protest leader. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois fought for civil rights for black people in the United States. During the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, he was the person most responsible for the changes in conditions for black PEOPLE IN AMERICAn society. He also was responsible for changes in the way they thought about themselves. William Du Bois was the son of free blacks who lived in a northern state. His mother was Mary Burghardt. His father was Alfred Du Bois. His parents had never been slaves. Nor were their parents. William was born into this free and independent African-American family in eighteen sixty-eight in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was in those years in school that William Du Bois learned what he later called the secret of his success. His secret, he said, was to go to bed every night at ten o'clock. William Du Bois went to excellent colleges, Harvard University in Massachusetts and the University of Berlin in Germany. He received his doctorate degree in history from Harvard in eighteen ninety-five. His book, "The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study," was published four years later. It was the first study of a black community in the United States. He became a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University in eighteen ninety-seven. He remained there until nineteen ten. William Du Bois had believed that education and knowledge could help solve the race problem. But racial prejudice in the United States was causing violence. Mobs of whites killed blacks. Laws provided for separation of the races. Race riots were common. The situation in the country made Mr. Du Bois believe that social change could happen only through protest. In the very beginning of "The Souls of Black Folk" he expressed the reason he felt the book was important: "Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here at the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line. " Later in the book, Mr. Du Bois explained the struggle blacks, or Negroes as they then were called, faced in America: "One ever feels his twoness -- an American, a Negro: two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideas in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. ... He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face." In nineteen-oh-five, Mr. Du Bois established the Niagara Movement to oppose Mr. Washington. He and other black leaders called for complete political, civil and social rights for black Americans. The organization did not last long. Disputes among its members and a campaign against it by Booker T. Washington kept it from growing. Yet the Niagara Movement led to the creation in nineteen-oh-nine of an organization that would last: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. Du Bois became director of research for the organization. He also became editor of the N.A.A.C.P. magazine, "The Crisis." Mr. Du Bois also called for the development of black literature and art. He urged the readers of the N.A.A.C.P. magazine, "The Crisis," to see beauty in black. In nineteen thirty-four, W. E. B. Du Bois resigned from his position at "The Crisis" magazine. It was during the severe economic depression in the United States. He charged that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supported the interests of successful blacks. He said the organization was not concerned with the problems of poorer blacks. In nineteen forty-four, Mr. Du Bois returned to the N.A.A.C.P. in a research position. Four years later he left after another disagreement with the organization. He became more and more concerned about politics. He wrote: "As...a citizen of the world as well as of the United States of America, I claim the right to know and think and tell the truth as I see it. I believe in Socialism as well as Democracy. I believe in Communism wherever and whenever men are wise and good enough to achieve it; but I do not believe that all nations will achieve it in the same way or at the same time. I despise men and nations which judge human beings by their color, religious beliefs or income. ... I hate War." His death was announced the next day to a huge crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of thousands of blacks and whites had gathered for the March on Washington to seek improved civil rights in the United States. W. E. B. Du Bois had helped make that march possible. Thanks to manythings.org for audio and text This is a VOA product in the public domain