He was born in the village of Great Barrington, Massachusetts to Alfred and Mary Du Bois and became the first African American to receive a Ph.D from Harvard. He travelled in Europe, and studied in Berlin. Following this, he spent many years studying the lives and situations of African Americans, applying social science to problems of race relations.

DuBois became one of the more notable political activists on behalf of African Americans. A contemporary of Booker T. Washington, he argued with the latter in print about African-American acceptance of issues such as segregation. In 1905, Du Bois helped to found the Niagara Movement, and in 1909 he helped to found the NAACP. In 1910, he left his teaching post at Atlanta University to work as publications director at the NAACP. He was editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, an NAACP-sponsored publication, for 25 years before resigning in June 1934. He wrote weekly columns in many newspapers, including the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, the New York Amsterdam News, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

DuBois was investigated by the FBI, who claimed in May of 1942 that "[h]is writing indicate him to be a socialist," and that he "has been called a Communist and at the same time criticized by the Communist party." J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memo to the FBI on October 6, 1950 that while he is a "strong believer in free speech," a report of a speech made by DuBois seemed to be "subversive to a degree that makes [his] blood boil," and that he wishes the government "could squealch some of the people who are talking like this Du Bois."

DuBois acted as Chairman of the Peace Information Center when the Korean War started, where he fought for the outlawing of atomic weapons. He was subsequently indicted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and acquited for lack of evidence. In his later years, W. E. B. Du Bois became increasingly disillusioned with both black capitalism and the United States. He emigrated to Ghana in 1961 and was welcomed by President Kwame Nkrumah who asked him to direct the Encyclopedia Africana, a government production. He joined the Communist Party in Ghana, and lived there until his death on August 27, 1963 in Accra, Ghana.

In 1992, the United States honored W. E. B. Du Bois with his portrait on a postage stamp. On October 5, 1994, the main library at UMass Amherst was named after him.

Table of contents

1 Quotes 2 Bibliography 3 External Link 3.1 See Also 3.2 References

Quotes

• "I sit with Shakespeare, and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm and arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out of the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed Earth and the tracery of stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil."
• "In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a nigger." - to an audience in Peking in 1959.

• The Souls of Black Folks (1903)
• John Brown: A Biography (1909)
• The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911)
• Darkwater (1920)
• Gift of Black Folk (1924)
• Dark Princess: A Romance (1928)
• Dusk of Dawn (1940)
• Color and Democracy (1945)
• The Encyclopedia of the Negro (1946)
• The Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois (1968)
• "The Evolution of Negro Leadership" published in The Dial 31 (July 16, 1901).
• "The Talented Tenth" published as the second chapter of The Negro Problem, a collection of articles by African Americans.

• The Souls of Black Folk, Project Gutenberg edition

• W.E.B. DuBois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century. New York, NY: International Publishers Co. Inc., 1968, pp. 438-440.
• A Biographical Sketch of W.E.B. DuBois by Gerald C. Hynes
• FBI File of WEB DuBois