W. E. B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American author, editor, sociologist, historian and activist best known for his leading a leading and pivotal role in the civil rights movement. Born in western Massachusetts, he was the first Afro-American to earn a doctorate degree as a result of his graduate studies at Harvard, and worked as a professor of sociology, history and economics at Atlanta University. He was a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and both edited and contributed frequently to its journal The Crisis. His core premise was an insistence on equal rights, opportunities, and representation for blacks, in opposition to the Atlanta compromise developed by Booker T. Washington. He was a pioneer in the emerging academic discipline of sociology, writing the first scientific treatment in the subject. IN that capacity he was an acute student of the elements and effects of racism and spoke out against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination. He also advocated that capitalism was a primary cause of racism and was sympathetic to socialist causes. His essay collection The Souls of black Folk is a seminal work in Afro –American literature, and his 1935 masterpiece Black Reconstruction in America debunked the idea that blacks were responsible for the failure o Reconstruction. He died at the age of 95 in 1963, a year before the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

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W. E. B. Du Bois

Dark Princess

The Souls of Black Folk

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638 - 1870