In our Icon Series, we give thanks to those whose lives have laid the foundation for our journey toward justice and equity. In this season of being focused on showing appreciation, the New Hampshire Center for Justice & Equity celebrates the extraordinary life of W.E.B. Du Bois.
W.E.B. Du Bois at his desk at Atlanta University. Image credits: W.E.B Du Bois Collection, Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries.
About W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. As a scholar and co-founder of the NAACP, Du Bois exposed the structural roots of racism and challenged America to live up to its democratic ideals. Through his research, writing, and advocacy, he helped shape the modern civil rights movement and inspired generations to continue the struggle for equality.
Early Life and the Making of a Scholar
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to Alfred and Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois. Growing up in a predominantly white community, he attended a racially integrated high school, and was encouraged to pursue higher education by teachers who recognized his academic brilliance.
In 1885, Du Bois moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Fisk University, where he first experienced the realities of the segregated South under Jim Crow laws. After graduating in 1888, he obtained a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Harvard University, and went on to study abroad at the University of Berlin, deepening his understanding of social science and economics.
In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard, with a dissertation on the transatlantic slave trade, which remains relevant today. His experiences in Europe and the United States shaped his conviction that racism was not merely a matter of individual prejudice, but a systemic issue intertwined with power, economics, and culture.
Measuring Inequality and Building a National Movement
Du Bois’s early academic work pioneered the use of empirical sociology to document the lives of Black Americans. His first study, The Philadelphia Negro, from 1899, required an estimated 835 hours of door-to-door interviews in 2,500 households. During his tenure as a professor at Atlanta University in Georgia, he continued examining the condition of Black people. His views often clashed with those of Booker T. Washington, who believed that African Americans could overcome racial discrimination through hard work and economic gain.
Du Bois rejected the idea that Black Americans should accept segregation, and was a vocal critic of the idea of biological white superiority. His most famous work, The Souls of Black Folk from 1903, combined history, philosophy, and autobiography to describe the “double consciousness” of African Americans, who view themselves through their own eyes and the lens of a racist society. He also captured the term “Talented Tenth,” arguing that one in ten Black men had a duty to uplift the race through leadership, education, and advocacy.
Following a short-lived experience as the founder of the Niagara Movement, Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, serving as editor of its influential magazine, The Crisis. Through his editorials and essays, he exposed racial injustice, lynching, and economic inequality, and used his platform to advocate for civil rights, women’s suffrage, and anti-colonial movements across the globe.
“It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year.”
Race, Class, and Evolving Ideals
World War I marked a turning point in Du Bois’s political thought. In a controversial 1918 editorial, he urged African Americans to support the war effort, while later investigating discrimination against troops abroad. Travels to Liberia and the Soviet Union in the postwar years, as well as his study of Marxism, deepened his understanding of race and class as intertwined struggles.
Du Bois’s growing Black Nationalist stance led him to question the NAACP’s approach and internal tensions led to his resignation from that organization in 1934. He then returned to Atlanta University as chair of the sociology department and founded the magazine Phylon in 1940 to review race and culture. During this period he also published two of his most important books, influencing a new generation of Black intellectuals and activists.
In 1944, Du Bois returned to the NAACP as director of special research, helped shape its postwar agenda and represented the organization at the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945. He later presented a bold petition framing U.S. racism as a violation of international human rights in 1947. As Cold War tensions rose and the Red Scare spread, Du Bois’s leftist views and support for world peace brought him under government scrutiny.
Leaving the NAACP once again in 1948 due to ideological disagreements, Du Bois joined the Council on African Affairs and supported early anti-apartheid efforts in South Africa. He also chaired the Peace Information Center, whose opposition to nuclear weapons led to his indictment under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1951, charges from which he was later acquitted.
Global Vision and Pan-African Activism
Through the 1950s, Du Bois remained a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy and capitalism, earning the International Peace Prize in 1953. His influence extended beyond U.S. borders, as he frequently traveled internationally to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. His advocacy inspired the founding of the Institute for the Study of Africa in Moscow, and he received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1959 for his lifelong dedication to justice.
Du Bois was also very active in the Pan-African Movement and played a leading role in organizing several international Pan-African Conferences. These events brought together activists and intellectuals from African countries and the diaspora to demand self-determination and an end to colonial rule.
In 1961, at the age of 93, Du Bois moved to Ghana at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah, embracing Pan-African ideals and working on an Encyclopedia Africana to document the achievements of people of African descent. He became a Ghanaian citizen in 1963.
A Global Voice for Justice and Equity
W.E.B. Du Bois passed away in Accra on August 27, 1963, one day before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Throughout his life, he remained unafraid to challenge systems of power, using data, art, and scholarship as tools for change.
As his political outlook grew toward the left, Du Bois became increasingly critical of America’s failure to address racial and economic inequality. Even under government scrutiny during the McCarthy era, he continued to write, organize, and imagine a more equitable world.
In celebrating W.E.B. Du Bois for NHCJE’s 2025 Icon Series, we honor his legacy and vision of racial justice and global solidarity.
Learn more about W.E.B. Du Bois
https://www.biography.com/activists/web-du-bois - Biography.com
https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2024/02/23/happy-birthday-dr-w-e-b-du-bois/ - Rediscovering Black History
https://duboiscenter.library.umass.edu/about-du-bois/ - W. E. B. Du Bois Center
https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois - Hutchins Center for African & African American Research
Call to Action
Following in the footsteps of the civil rights icons who came before us, New Hampshire is facing unprecedented challenges, and NHCJE is preparing to fight the ‘good fight’.
Will you help us continue their legacy by investing in our work this Giving Tuesday?