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A leading African-American sociologist, writer and activist. Educated at Harvard University and other top schools, Du Bois studied with some of the most important social thinkers of his time. He earned fame for the publication of such works as Souls of Black Folk (1903), and was a founding officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and editor of its magazine.

Du Bois became the first person in his extended family to attend high school, and did so at his mother’s insistence. In 1883, Du Bois began to write articles for papers like the New York Globe and the Freeman.

Du Bois initially attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, a school for Black students. His tuition was paid by several churches in his home town, Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Dubois also taught at Wilberforce University and Atlanta University and chaired the Peace Information Center. Shortly before his death, Du Bois settled in Ghana to work on the Encyclopedia Africana.

Du Bois took a position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 conducting a study of the city’s Seventh Ward, published in 1899 as The Philadelphia Negro. The study is considered one of the earliest examples of statistical work being used for sociological purposes, with extensive fieldwork resulting in hundreds of interviews conducted door-to-door by Du Bois.

Mapping out the Seventh Ward and carefully documenting familial and work structures, Du Bois concluded that the Black community’s greatest challenges were poverty, crime, lack of education and distrust of those outside the community.

The book also introduced the idea of “double consciousness,” in which African Americans are required to consider not only their view of themselves but also the view that the world, particularly whites, has on them during all parts of life. It also expressly differentiated Du Bois from more conservative Black voices like Booker T. Washington.

Du Bois argued for immediate racial equality for African Americans. His emergence as a Black leader paralleled the rise of the Jim Crow laws of the South and the Progressive Era. He was a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and has been called the Father of Social Science and the Father of Pan-Africanism.

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