W.E.B Dubois by Malik Perry

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W.E.B Dubois

Published on Nov 18, 2015

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For many young African Americans in the period from 1910 through the 1930s, Du Bois was the voice of the black community. He attacked Woodrow Wilson when the president allowed his cabinet members to segregate the federal government. He continued to fight against the demand by many whites that black education be primarily industrial and that black students in the South learn to accept white supremacy. Du Bois emphasized the necessity for higher education in order to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans, whom he dubbed "The Talented Ten

Du Bois was born and raised in Massachusetts. He graduated in 1888 from Fisk University, a black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. During the summer, he taught in a rural school and later wrote about his experiences in his book The Souls Of Black Folks

In the 1930s, Du Bois found himself in a bitter dispute with Walter White, the head of the NAACP, when Du Bois suddenly penned articles that advocated voluntary segregation, maintaining that black children would receive a better education from black teachers. Du Bois resigned from the editorship of THE CRISIS and the NAACP in 1934.

Photo by B Tal

Du Bois took the lead in founding the short-lived Niagara Movement, intended to be an organization advocating civil rights for blacks. Although the Niagara Movement faltered, it was the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in 1909.

when he was 83 years old, the federal government prosecuted Du Bois for his affiliation with the Communist Party. A judge eventually threw out the case. Disillusioned with the United States, he officially joined the Communist Party in 1961 and moved to Ghana; he renounced his American citizenship more than a year later.