An Intellectual Leader is Born

"In the course of his long career, Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism—scholarship, propaganda, integration, national self-determination, human rights, cultural and economic separatism, politics, international communism, expatriation, third world solidarity."

Biographer David Levering Lewis

On February 23 in Black History...

In 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.  Du Bois was an intellectual leader in the United States as sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor.  Du Bois graduated from Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D in History, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard. Later he became a professor of history and economics at Atlanta University. As head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910, he was founder and editor of the NAACP's journal The Crisis.  Du Bois was the most prominent intellectual leader and political activist on behalf of African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century.A contemporary of Booker T. Washington, he carried on a dialogue with the educator about segregation, political disfranchisement, and ways to improve African American life. He was labeled "The Father of Pan-Africanism." 

Along with Washington, Du Bois helped organize the "Negro Exhibition" at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.  http://www.webdubois.org/dbANParis.html It included Frances Benjamin Johnston's photos of Hampton Institute's black students.  The Negro exhibition focused on African Americans' positive contributions to American society.  Du Bois is viewed by many as a modern day prophet. This is highlighted by his "Credo", a prose-poem first published in The Independent in 1904.  See text of Credo below. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote his Credo at Atlanta University as a rejection of the politics of Booker T. Washington, whose work toward racial equality demanded a slow, steady approach that was viewed by some, Du Bois included, as too accomodating of the status quo.

       

"The Negro Race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education then, among Negroes, must first of all deal with the "Talented Tenth." It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the worst."  WEB DuBois

In 1905, Du Bois, along with Minnesota attorney Fredrick L. McGhee and others, helped found the Niagara Movement with William Monroe Trotter. The Movement championed freedom of speech and criticism, the recognition of the highest and best human training as the monopoly of no caste or race, full male suffrage, a belief in the dignity of labor, and a united effort to realize such ideals under sound leadership.

The alliance between Du Bois and Trotter was, however, short-lived, as they had a dispute over whether or not white people should be included in the organization and in the struggle for civil rights. Believing that they should, in 1909 Du Bois with a group of like-minded supporters founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Du Bois wrote and published more than 4,000 articles, essays, and books over the course of his 95-year life. Most of these are out of print and hard to find even in their original publications. No edition of his complete works has yet been published. In 1977, Paul G. Partington published a bibliography of Du Bois's published works, titled W. E. B. Du Bois: A Bibliography of His Published Writings. (Whittier, CA: c.1977, 1979 (rev. ed.)) (privately published). ISBN 0-9602538-1-5. A supplement was published in 1984, titled W. E. B. Du Bois: A Bibliography of His Published Writings—Supplement. (Whittier, CA: c. 1984), 20 pages. The supplement represented Partington's research in the Du Bois papers owned by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Du Bois was invited to Ghana in 1961 by President Kwame Nkrumah to direct the Encyclopedia Africana, a government production, and a long-held dream of his. When, in 1963, he was refused a new U.S. passport, he and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, became citizens of Ghana. Contrary to some opinions (including David Levering Lewis's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Du Bois), he never renounced his US citizenship, even when denied a passport to travel to Ghana. Du Bois' health had declined in 1962, and on August 27, 1963, he died in Accra, Ghana at the age of ninety-five, one day before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.  Du Bois is buried at the Du Bois Memorial Centre in Accra.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois#cite_note-16

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DuBois' Credo

I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and white, are brothers, varying through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development. 
Especially do I believe in the Negro Race; in the beauty of its genius, the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall yet inherit this turbulent earth.

I believe in pride of race and lineage and self; in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great as to despise no man's father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not brother-in-law.

I believe in Service–humble reverent service, from the blackening of boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness is Hell, and Wage is the “Well done!” of the Master who summoned all them that labor and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black sweating cotton-hands of Georgia and the First Families of Virginia, since all distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine.

I believe in the Devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again, believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their Maker stamped on a brother's soul.

I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocia of oppression and wrong; and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.

I believe in Liberty for all men; the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in the kingdom of God and love.

I believe in the training of children, black even as white; the leading out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, not for pelf or peace, but for Life lit by some large vision of beauty and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation.

Finally, I believe in Patience–patience with the weakness of the Weak and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the mad chastening of Sorrow–patience with God.

http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/duboisopedia/doku.php?id=about:credo