W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography

William Edward Burghardt Dubois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 18, 1868. Dubois lived in a relatively upscale town with a small minority population; thus, racism was not prevalent in his early life--in his eyes. Throughout his early education, Dubois showed an interest in his race and bettering the conditions for his fellow African Americans. After being unable to pay for Harvard University's tuition, Dubois attended Fisk University--located in Tennessee--on a scholarship.

Dubois's college experience proved an eye-opening one; he saw intense discrimination and mistreatment towards blacks first-hand. Dubois then attended Harvard and the University of Berlin on scholarships and eventually acquired his Ph.D. from the latter. Dubois was extremely interested in African-American society and made it the focus of his adult life. "The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self" (Dubois 6).

After teaching for several years, W.E.B. Dubois conducted research at the University of Pennsylvania in the field of African-American studies. Beginning in the early 1990s, Dubois began to favor a more immediate course of action to combat mistreatment of African Americans. In 1905, Dubois met with other influential leaders and created the Niagara Movement. Dubois and his cofounders demanded equal treatment of blacks immediately, in sharp contrast to Booker T. Washington's philosophy.

The group was poorly funded and organized, however, and soon its efforts proved ineffective. After race riots in 1908 and 1909, the movement for blacks' rights became more popular, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by Dubois and others shortly before the Niagara Movement was dismantled--in 1910 (W.E.B. Dubois 1).

Essentially a continuation of the Niagara Movement, the N.A.A.C.P has made significant progress in achieving equal treatment for blacks since its inception, earning lots of support and funding. Creating such an organization evidenced Dubois's desire to achieve change for blacks immediately; not through long-term methods of vocational education favored by many of his contemporaries including Booker T. Washington.

Although Dubois helped found and organize the group, he focused mostly on his teaching, writing and research. Dubois published his most famous book, The Souls of Black Folk, in 1903; the book is a semi-autobiographical account of the plight of African Americans since their existence. Dubois's book stresses the absurdity of viewing blacks as inferior to whites.

Also contained in the book is a chapter entitled "On Booker T. Washington and Others," which attacks black leaders who stress educational methods to garner equal treatment for African Americans--specifically Booker T. Washington, a contemporary of Dubois. Dubois also wrote and edited for The Crisis, the N.A.A.C.P's publication, for many years. The Pan-African Congress, which supported liberty and freedom for all blacks, specifically those living in Africa, was also influenced and organized by Dubois (W.E.B. Dubois 1).

Many supporters of the black-rights movement were galvanized by Dubois's words, and intensified their fight for fair and just treatment. Dubois played an integral role in the Civil Rights Movement. His writings and research were widely read during the time and used by many civil-rights advocates as evidence of the deplorable conditions facing blacks--and the need to correct those problems.

In the early 1960s he became a member of the Communist Party and, shortly before his death, left America to live in Ghana. Despite leaving the country, Dubois was a firm supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, but did not live to see its goals come to fruition; he died in March of 1963--mere hours before the world-renown march on Washington (W.E.B. Dubois 1).

W.E.B. Dubois surely had a profound impact on blacks' rights and was a success in bringing about change and reform to better his people. By establishing the N.A.A.C.P, an organization that is still extremely active today, Dubois ensured that future generations of African Americans would be able to defend their rights and address violations. His widely published novel, The Souls of Black Folk, was also a success in that its ideas were used by other black-rights activists to bring about the same change and reform that Dubois wanted--even after his death.

WORKS CITED

"W.E.B. DuBois" Wikipedia. www.wikipedia.org