Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of W.E.B. Du Bois. One of the great intellectuals of the 20th century and an architect of the civil rights movement, Du Bois was born February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts—”by a golden river and in the shadow of two great hills,” as he would describe it in each of his autobiographies.
He studied at Fisk University, Harvard College and the University of Berlin and was the first African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University. A pioneering sociologist, he authored The Philadelphia Negro, the first data-based study of a Black community in the U.S.
Du Bois’ was a prolific author whose seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, introduced the concepts of double consciousness and “the Veil,” while contending that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.” He co-founded the Niagara Movement and the NAACP (where he created and edited its venerable publication The Crisis) and has been called the father of modern Pan-Africanism.
Du Bois died in Accra, Ghana in 1963 on the eve of the March on Washington. Announcing the news at the March, the NAACP’s Roy Wilkins said, “It is incontrovertible that at the dawn of the twentieth century his was the voice that was calling to you to gather here today…”
Happy Birthday, Dr. Du Bois! #DuBois150