Black Reconstruction In America

W.E.B. du Bois (1868-1963) was a Black American historian, sociologist, and civil rights activist. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts and grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. He first attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee for two years before transferring to Harvard, where he studied history, philosophy, and economics. He earned a doctorate in history from Harvard in 1895. Du Bois went on to teach at Atlanta University.

Over the course of the 20th century, in addition to his academic work, Du Bois became an increasingly prominent spokesperson for Black civil rights and education. Du Bois became active in the Pan-African movement and was a keynote speaker at the First Pan-African Conference in 1900. He earned international attention for his work The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a critique of the conservative Booker T. Washington and a call for liberal education for Black Americans. In 1909, he co-founded the NAACP. Du Bois was a prolific writer on questions of political economy, civil rights, and Black life. Du Bois was associated with left-wing politics throughout his life. He was briefly a member of the American Socialist party in 1911 and near the end of his life joined the Communist Party.