Du Bois, W. E. B. 1868-1963

DU BOIS, W. E. B. 1868-1963

Sociologist, civil rights leader

Education

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois grew up in rural Tennessee, where the terrible social and economic conditions in which blacks lived inspired him to devote himself to improving the status of blacks. He believed that higher education was the best means to overcome racial oppression. W. E. B. Du Bois received his bachelor's degree from Fisk University and a second bachelor's in philosophy and a Ph.D in history and social sciences from Harvard University. Du Bois wrote his doctoral dissertation on the suppression of the African slave trade. He also received a fellowship to study at the University of Berlin, where he wrote another thesis on agricultural economics in the American South. In 1895 he became the first black to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Ambitions

On the night before his twenty-fifth birthday Du Bois described himself in his journal as "either a genius or a fool" and declared his ambition to "make a name in science, to make a name in literature and thus to raise my race. Or perhaps to raise a visible empire in Africa thro' England, France, or Germany." In 1894 Du Bois embarked on his academic career. His first academic post was as professor of classics at Wilberforce University in Ohio. His doctoral thesis, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, was published as part of a Harvard series of historical works.

Social Change Through Knowledge

In 1896 Du Bois was appointed assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was asked by the university to conduct a sociological study of the black population of Philadelphia, which was published in 1899 as The Philadelphia Negro, the first sociological analysis of a black urban community. At this point in his career Du Bois believed deeply that social science would provide America's white leaders with the "knowledge necessary to eliminate racism and solve the race problem."

Agitation and Protest

In 1897 Du Bois moved to Atlanta University, where he remained until 1934, as professor and chairman of the departments of History and Economics, and then Department of Sociology. He continued his research on the urban black community and published his influential The Souls of Black Folks in 1903, which examined both the damaging effects of racism and the strengths of the black community. Du Bois described black identity in the United States in these terms: "One ever feels his two-ness,—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." Du Bois wrote prolifically throughout the first decade of the century, but his publications were ignored. Du Bois reconsidered his strategy and concluded that agitation and protest, not knowledge, were necessary to bring social change.

Rift with Booker T. Washington

In turning to direct activism Du Bois continued to believe in access to higher education for blacks as a means to full political rights. In this he differed from the moderate stance of black leader Booker T. Washington, who supported vocational education for blacks and their gradual assumption of full citizenship and accommodated to white leaders. Though the two leaders tried to resolve their differences, they were unable, and in 1905 Du Bois set out on his own.

The Niagra Movement

On 11 July 1905 Du Bois organized a meeting of leaders committed to his goal of immediate full economic and political rights for blacks. This split the black movement into Du Bois's "Niagra Movement," and Washington's "Tuskegee Machine," which advocated elementary and industrial education for blacks. Leaders of the Niagra Movement called for a complete rejection of racism and insistence on fundamental human equality. The radical Niagra movement lacked the political and financial support enjoyed by Washington, and though Du Bois built momentum for his movement over the next several years, the movement fragmented and disbanded in 1910. Some historians attribute the demise of the Niagra movement to the nation's "virulent racism."

A Founder of the NAACP

Learning from the failure of the Niagra Movement, Du Bois decided that an interracial organization representing beliefs different from the Tuskegee group was necessary to end racism. Thus, in 1910 he became a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an interracial organization whose goal was to end discrimination. Du Bois became director of publications and research for the NAACP and edited its journal, Crisis, for twenty-five years. Internal conflicts at the NAACP, such as Du Bois's advocacy of segregation as a means to advance blacks in education and the economy, led to Du Bois's resignation from the editorship of Crisis in 1934, He returned to Atlanta University as chair of the Department of Sociology.

Arrogant and Autonomous

Du Bois often changed positions, asserting his independent response to the changing racial climate. These shifts, along with what has been described as his arrogrant personality, created continual conflict between Du Bois and other black leaders. He embraced the Pan-African Movement in the 1920s, but his belief in self-government for oppressed black people living in colonial regimes led to clashes with the views of nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Du Bois exposed corruption and poor management in Garvey's Black Shipping Line, which led to Garvey's arrest. In his later years Du Bois joined the Communist Party and distanced himself from the mainstream of the U.S. civil rights movement. In the 1950s he traveled to the Soviet Union and Africa and moved to Ghana, West Africa, just before his death. When Du Bois died in 1963, Crisis described him as "the prime inspirer, philosopher and father of the Negro protest movement."

Source:

Francis L. Broderick, W. E. B. Dubois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959).