William Edward Burghardt (often shortened to W. E. B.) Du Bois was a man of various talents, being a Civil Rights activist, sociologist, historian, editor, and more.
Born on February 23, 1868, he was raised by two of the small populace of “free blacks” in the U.S., having owned land in Massachusetts before slavery was brought to America. During the Revolutionary War, Du Bois briefly served in the Colonial Army, being one of the reasons as to why he didn’t become a slave. Until 1885, Du Bois continued to be taught in local schools, until he finally got enough money from donations from neighbors to go to college. He went to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he started to learn about the racism and discrimination against blacks.
After college, Du Bois received various job applications to tech in various universities, especially one from Tuskegee Institute, one f the most famous black universities in the 18 and 1900s. However, he instead chose one for a university in Ohio. Du Bois continues to go through various teaching jobs, writing various studies and papers about black society, one notable paper being “The Philadelphia Negro”, which is considered to be the first case study in the U.S. about the black populace.
He continued to write these types of papers until July 23, 1900, when he attended the First Pan-African Conference. The First Pan-African Conference was a conference held by the African Association in response to the colonization of Africa, notably by Great Britain. Du Bois played a vital role in this conference, writing a draft for a letter to European leaders asking them to let Africa be self-governed as well as more political and human rights for Africans around the world. The draft was accepted by the conference, and was published to various global leaders titled as “Address to the Nations of the World”.
After the conference, he set up an exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition titled “The Exhibit of American Negroes”, where he put up around 363 photographs of the lives of African Americans, as well as data and graphs collected by him. The exhibit won the gold medal, the photos being transferred later to the Library of Congress.
Until 1909, Du Bois continued to write more papers on the topic of African Americans, and even started the Niagara Movement, a gathering where Du Bois and others got together and wrote a declaration opposing Booker Washington (a spokesperson similar to Du Bois) and his Atlanta Compromise, a unofficial agreement that freed slaves in the south would still be subject to discrimination and segregation, with only the addition of slightly more rights.
But in 1909, another conference was held (different to the Niagara Movement), discussing the idea of a group dedicated to working towards civil rights, equal voting rights, and equal education rights. In 1910, this was created, being known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. Du Bois would work for the NAACP until he willingly resigned in 1934, but would later join back in 1943. Most of what Du Bois is known for takes place while he was in the NAACP, his first notable being his  work in The Crisis, the NAACP’s own newspaper. The newspaper was very popular, but in the years of 1915 to 1916, The Crisis started to gain large losses of money, which made some of the NAACP leaders believe Du Bois was at fault, attempting to fire him from his position. Du Bois did eventually make the newspaper successful again, and he remained in his position.
In 1917, during WWI, African Americans were allowed to serve in the U.S., but Du Bois was disappointed that they could only serve as infantrymen and be commanded by only white officers. Du Bois did push to allow the soldiers the ability to become officers, but the Houston Riot of 1917 set him back, a riot caused by an uprising of a black-only army battalion, killing 16 whites. But Du Bois did eventually get it implemented in October of that year. After WWI, Du Bois interviewed black soldiers who had served in WWI, learning that there was still heavy discrimination in the armed forces, and that some officers even discourage having blacks join the Army.
After this, Du Bois became more determined to end the discrimination of blacks, but in 1919, this became more prevalent because of the Red Summer of 1919, a massacre that involved the deaths of over 300 African Americans in the south, with Du Bois documenting most of what happened in the NAAPC newspaper, especially during the attack in Elaine, Arkansas, where nearly 200 blacks were killed. The 60 survivors of the massacre were tried for conspiracy against the government (known as Moore v.s. Dempsey), and in response to this, Du Bois called for the black people to take action and support the survivors. This did have a large effect on the trial, with it being concluded 6 years later, resulting in the victory of the Supreme Court, the first time the 14th amendment stopped states from defending mass lynchings.
The next 10 years were relatively successful for Du Bois, with him writing his first of three biographies, and promoting the Harlem Renaissance, although he soon fell out of supporting it because he felt that the artwork was going relatively unnoticed and not influential to the movement. In 1929, however, a debate took place between Du Bois and a man named Lothrop Stoddard, a representative of the KKK (Ku Klux Klan). Lothrop promoted eugenics and “scientific racism”, while Du Bois represented the opposite. During the debate, Du Bois took advantage of the idea that most racists were unintentionally funny, and got people onto his side instead of Lothrops. Multiple news articles were written about the debate, one being titled “DuBois Shatters Stoddard’s Cultural Theories in Debate; Thousands Jam Hall… Cheered As He Proves Race Equality”. The debate was very successful for Du Bois, and turned many people towards Du Bois ideals, and the support of African American rights.
After this, Du Bois learned about the idea of socialism, an ideology similar to communism. Originally, Du Bois did like the idea of socialism, believing that it was a better replacement for capitalism. However, during one trial, the Communist Party accused the NAACP of being a “class enemy”, and that they were a elite of people that didn’t know what the working blacks actually wanted.
But in 1933, Du Bois resigned from his job at the NAACP newspaper, because he feared that he would be fired as an editor, and later joined into a academic position. Later in 1934, he changed his political opinion on segregation saying that “separate but equal” was an acceptable goal for them. This led to further disagreements, which finally led Du Bois to resign later that year.
In the following years up to 1941, Du Bois continued being an academic scholar and visiting the world, and places like Nazi Germany as well as Japan. Du Bois did admire how NG managed to improve their economy since WWI, but was disgusted at the treatment of the Jews, saying that they were comparable to the African slave trades of the 1800s. Later yet in 1936, the Japanese ambassador arranged a tour with Du Bois, showing him multiple academic buildings in China, Japan, and Manchuria. This greatened the strength between Imperial Japan and Du Bois, which he continued to support throughout the war. During WWII, Du Bois was disappointed at how the roles of African Americans in war had not changed since WWI, still being limited to only 5.85% of the armed forces.
But in 1943, Du Bois was suddenly fired from his academic position by
Rufus Clement, the college president of where Du Bois worked at. Despite many scholars coming to defend Du Bois, Rufus said that Du Bois did nothing but “battering his life out against ignorance, bigotry, intolerance and slothfulness, projecting ideas nobody but he understands, and raising hopes for change which may be comprehended in a hundred years.” After turning down offers from other potential universities, Du Bois finally rejoined the NAACP after 10 years. During the time Du Bois had left, it had grown in wealth and had gained around 325,000 members.
In 1945, Du Bois joined a UN Council Meeting which included three members of the NAACP, including him. Du Dois stated that the system of government the U.S. was using was irresponsible, and mostly caused more wars than keeping peace. It was recognized by China, India, and the USSR, but it went virtually unnoticed to other countries. After this, he kept pushing the idea that the U.S. was doing more harm than good to others and it’s people, especially including African Americans.
During the Cold War-era, Du Bois and the NAACP distanced themselves from the USSR in fear of letting funding and reputation suffer. Despite earlier comments about socialism, Du Bois did not like the idea of communism, but still felt like capitalism should be replaced with socialism. However, this did not help since in the following years, the FBI started cracking down on communist sympathizers, or anyone who they suspected as one.
Du Bois was eventually caught in this crackdown, being tried in 1951. The case was dismissed almost immediately after an attorney said that Dr. Albert Einstein offered to be a personal witness to Du Bois. Even though Du Bois was never charged, his passport was withheld for eight years, only getting it back in 1958.
After he acquired it back, Du Bois later travelled to Ghana in 1960, and after he received proper funding, started working on a Encyclopedia Africana, a book documenting the people and diaspora of Africa. In 1963, however, Du Bois finally passed away on August 27th. He was later buried at Osu Castle on August 29, and later transferred to a government seat building in Accra.