W.E.B. Du Bois, the sociologist, writer and civil rights activist, died on this day, August 27th, in 1963.
The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, Du Bois became a professor at Atlanta University and co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
Du Bois and the NAACP led the way in the civil rights struggle of the early 20th Century, fighting for equal rights for black people in America.
But Du Bois’s work wasn’t just about the United States: he also fought against racism and discrimination across colonial Africa and Asia. He was a socialist and an anti-war campaigner. He was even awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize by the USSR.
His book The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, is still considered one of the most important texts of 20th Century America. In it, he coined the idea of ‘double consciousness’, an internal conflict between American-ness and blackness, with African-Americans viewing themselves through the eyes of their white oppressors.
The Civil Rights Act was passed just a year after Du Bois’s death. In 1968, Martin Luther King paid tribute to Du Bois, describing his greatest virtue as “his committed empathy with all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms of injustice.”
Despite the huge role he played in the struggle for black liberation in the 20th century, you don’t hear Du Bois’s name very often these days. He certainly isn’t as famous as activists like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.
When did you first hear about Du Bois? Let us know in the comments!
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