BIRTH of a Community CREATOR

W.E.B. DuBOIS, Scholar, Sociologist, Educator, Historian, Editor, Author, and Civil Rights Activist, was born WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DuBOIS on this day 2/23/1868 in Great Barrington, Mass.

DuBois was an excellent student. He graduated valedictorian of his high school in 1884. He received a B.A. from Fisk University four years later, a second B.A. from Harvard University two years later in 1890.

In 1895, DuBois became the first Black person to earn a Ph.D at Harvard University. His doctoral thesis, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America," became the first book published by Harvard University Press a year later.

In 1903 , his collection of essays , "The Souls of Black Folk," challenged the civil rights strategies of Black leaders of the day. As a result, in 1905 he helped create the "Niagara Movement," which presented an organizational challenge to White racism, and racial injustice. This led him to being a co-founder of the NAACP.

DuBois wrote numerous books, essays, and articles on the condition and progress of Black people in the United States. He was not happy with the dominance of White racism in American society and the role it played in keeping Black people  subjugated to second-class citizenship. His disillusionment over the power of White racism and what he felt was a compromising approach by Black leaders to the problem led him to become unpopular with many Blacks and Whites.

In 1950, DuBois became a Communist, believing that it offered the only hope for working class people  around the world, and the only major challenge to White racism.

In 1961, DuBois gave up his citizenship, and left the United States permanently.  He died in Accra, Ghana in 1963 on the eve of the largest Civil Rights demonstration in U.S. history, the MARCH ON WASHINGTON.