W.E.B. Du Bois (1868 - 1963)
Sun Feb 23, 1868
W.E.B. Du Bois, born on this day in 1868, was a seminal American intellectual and socialist civil rights activist who co-founded both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP, also authoring texts such as "Black Reconstruction in America".
Du Bois grew up in the relatively tolerant and integrated community of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and, after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, he became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University in Georgia.
Among Du Bois's works are "The Souls of Black Folk", a collection of essays, and "Black Reconstruction in America", which challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that black people were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era. Du Bois was also a Pan-Africanist and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers.
Later in life, Du Bois was openly sympathetic to communist movements. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began to keep a file on Du Bois in 1942, and, during the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era, Du Bois was explicitly targeted by the state.
In 1951, Du Bois was indicted by the U.S. government for acting as an agent of a foreign state after he advocated for nuclear disarmament via the Peace Information Center (PIC). Although left-wing figures such as Langston Hughes and Albert Einstein came to his defense, the NAACP declined to support Du Bois during his trial, which ultimately failed to convict him.
Du Bois died on August 27th, 1963, in Accra, the capital of Ghana, at age 95.
"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."
- W.E.B. Du Bois
- Date: 1868-02-23
- Learn More: www.blackpast.org, www.gutenberg.org, en.wikipedia.org.
- Tags: #Socialism, #Pan-Africanism, #Birthdays.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org