A. E. Housman
British classical scholar and poet (1859-1936)
W.E.B. Du Bois was a pioneering African-American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist who fought tirelessly against racism and discrimination. He was a co-founder of the NAACP and a leading figure in the Pan-African movement, known for his influential writings and his belief in the power of education to drive social change.
Table of Contents
About the W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Boiswas an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and Harvard University, where he was its first African American to earn a doctorate, Du Bois rose to national prominence as a leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of black civil rights activists seeking equal rights. Du Bois and his supporters opposed the Atlanta Compromise. Instead, Du Bois insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the talented tenth, a concept under the umbrella of racial uplift, and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership.
Du Bois was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoplein 1909. Du Bois used his position in the NAACP to respond to racist incidents. After the First World War, he attended the Pan-African Congresses, embraced socialism and became a professor at Atlanta University. Once the Second World War had ended, he engaged in peace activism and was targeted by the FBI. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra on August 27, 1963.
Du Bois was a prolific author. Du Bois primarily targeted racism in his polemics, which protested strongly against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, is a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus, Black Reconstruction in America, challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction era. Borrowing a phrase from Frederick Douglass, he popularized the use of the term color line to represent the injustice of the separate but equal doctrine prevalent in American social and political life. His 1940 autobiography Dusk of Dawn is regarded in part as one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology. In his role as editor of the NAACP’s journal The Crisis, he published many influential pieces. Du Bois believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism and was sympathetic to socialist causes.
Frequently Asked Questions
W.E.B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist who was born in 1868 and lived until 1963.
Du Bois was one of the founders of the NAACP and a leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of black civil rights activists seeking equal rights. He opposed the Atlanta Compromise and instead advocated for full civil rights and increased political representation for African Americans.
Du Bois believed that African Americans needed access to advanced education to develop their intellectual elite, which he referred to as the ,talented tenth., He also embraced socialism and believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism.
Du Bois was a prolific author who used his writings to protest against racism, lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His seminal work, ,The Souls of Black Folk,, is considered a landmark in African-American literature.
Du Bois attended the Pan-African Congresses, became a professor at Atlanta University, and engaged in peace activism later in his life. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana and died in Accra in 1963.
After completing graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and Harvard University, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, Du Bois rose to national prominence as a leader of the civil rights movement.
Du Bois and his supporters in the Niagara Movement opposed the Atlanta Compromise and instead insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation for African Americans.
15 Quotes by W. E. B. Du Bois
- 1.
Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 2.
One ever feels his twoness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 3.
A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 4.
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 5.
To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 6.
Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 7.
An American, a Negro… two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 8.
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 9.
But what of black women?… I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 10.
If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 11.
A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 12.
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 13.
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 14.
When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings.
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)
- 15.
The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?
W. E. B. Du BoisAmerican sociologist and activist (1868-1963)