One ever feels his twoness-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.--WEB Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, among a population of about 50 blacks among some 5,000 people. Though not embroiled in as much racial strife as other areas of America at the time, bigotry was still rampant in Great Barrington and would help shape the personality and thinking of the young DuBois.

At age fifteen Du Bois became the local correspondent for the New York Globe newspaper. He used this position as a vehicle with which to examine the lives of African-Americans. Through lectures and editorials, he spoke strongly upon the need of black political action

From 1885-1888 DuBois attended the black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. This was DuBois' first trip to the south and in those three years he witnessed racism as he had never before, which he would later state affected him powerfully. After graduation, DuBois entered Harvard, his first college choice. At first focusing on philosophy and history, he later turned his studies towards economics and social issues.

Though able to become the first African-American to graduate from the prestigious university, the racism so common in that era left him in an alienated environment. Later in life he remarked "I was in Harvard but not of it". He received his bachelor's degree in 1890 and immediately began working toward his masters and doctoral degrees.

DuBois completed his master's degree in the spring of 1891. However, shortly before that, ex-president Rutherford B. Hayes, then the current head of a fund to educate Negroes, was quoted in the Boston Herald as claiming that they could not find one worthy to enough for advanced study abroad. Angered by the racial insult, DuBois applied directly to Hayes for funds to study abroad. His credentials and references were so impeccable he not only received a grant, but a letter from Hayes in which the ex-president claimed to have been misquoted.


DuBois chose to study at the University of Berlin in Germany, at the time one of the world's finest institutions of higher learning. While in Berlin DuBois began to view the racial problems in the Americas, Africa and Asia as interconnected. This was the period of his life that united his studies of history, economics, and politics into a scientific approach of social research. DuBois' time at Berlin was cut short however after the white philanthropists funding him, disturbed by his seeming radicalization, decided that the University of Berlin was not giving him the "correct" education which would "help Negroes." DuBois objected but was forced to return to Harvard to obtain his degree. His doctoral thesis, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America," still remains an authoritative work on that subject, and is the first volume in Harvard's Historical Series.

With several years of study under his belt, DuBois worked on numerous research projects dealing with the state of black America. He also began to look at African history, forming theories of African past developments and achievements. It is during this time that his ideology begins to grow and he becomes recognized as a popular figure in black America. But with this new found fame and ideology would come strong controversy and conflicts.

The first of these would occur with none other than Booker T. Washington, who at that time was undoubtedly the most influential black figure in America. Following his famed "Atlanta Compromise" speech in 1895 which called on blacks to "cast down their buckets" rather than challenge Jim Crow oppression, Washington became the "go-to" man for powerful white interests. Grants, job placements or any endeavor concerning blacks that influential whites received was sent to Washington for endorsement or rejection. His famed "Tuskegee machine," both a school for industrial and domestic training of blacks and a political force, came to regulate many aspects of black life.

DuBois' conflict with Washington was not over the power he wielded, but rather Washington's philosophy. Washington argued the blacks should temporarily "forego political power, insistence on civil rights, and higher education of Negro youth." Instead, he argued blacks should "concentrate all their energies on industrial education." Du Bois strongly objected, viewing Washington's compromise as a way for whites to keep blacks forever in a servile role, as laborers and workers. Du Bois instead believed that black America deserved the same intellectual education afforded to whites, and in this way they could help black America progress. To DuBois, Washington's notions of political inactivity and black servility provided cover to the forces of white oppression. His 1903 essay, The Talented Tenth, focused on this belief that an intellectually trained class of "black men" was needed for racial uplift. This conflict came to a climax when Du Bois published his now famous book, The Souls of Black Folk.

The chapter entitled "Of Booker T. Washington and Others" contained an analytical discourse on what DuBois believed to be the general philosophy of Washington. DuBois edited the chapter himself to keep the most controversial and bitter remarks out of it. Nevertheless, it still was more than enough to turn the ideological conflict between DuBois and Washington into a personal one. In the early summer of 1905 Washington went to Boston to address a rally. While speaking he was heckled and verbally assaulted by William Monroe Trotter, who happened to be a college friend of Du Bois. The subsequent jailing of Trotter on trumped-up charges, apparently at the behest of followers of Washington drove DuBois to issue a call for black individuals who could perhaps counter the Tuskegee Machine and create what he saw as real "Negro Freedom and growth."

This culminated in January of 1906 with the famed "Niagara Movement." The group of black activists and intellectuals were forced to meet on the Canadian side of Niagara, after they were barred from meeting on the American side, with threats of being dynamited. The movement's objectives were to advocate civil justice and abolish caste discrimination. In 1909 all members of the Niagara Movement except Trotter, who distrusted growing white involvement, merged with a group of concerned white liberals to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Like Trotter, DuBois was not altogether pleased with the new group, but agreed to stay on as Director of Publications and Research, as long as he was given control of its leading publication--The Crisis.


The Crisis magazine of the NAACP became the chief vehicle of the movement. DuBois held the title of Editor-in-Chief of the magazine for 25 years and often wrote about what he felt was important, without dictation from the organization. A time of rampant lynching, anti-black white riots and numerous vicious acts of racism, DuBois' articles left no injustice untouched. His writings became a source of resistance and black identity throughout the United States. So popular did DuBois become that The Crisis  subscription rate grew from 1000 in 1909 to over 10,000 in May of 1919. His writings would play a great part in the beginning of the cultural and political movement that would be dubbed the Harlem Renaissance.

While in France acting as a representative of the NAACP at the Peace Conference following WWI, DuBois became convinced that it was opportune time for a Pan-African conference to bring attention to the problems of Africans around the world--something he had long beein interested in, believing that for Africans to be free anywhere, they must be free everywhere. The First Pan-African Congress was held in 1900. Another was held in 1921. There were many obstacles against him however, and his dreamed Pan-African movement never gained steam. As he stated himself, following WWI, "political and social revolution, economic upheaval and depression, national and racial hatred made a setting...[for]...any such movement...entirely out of the Question." It was during this time however that DuBois would encounter none other than a rising figure in Pan-African affairs: Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

The conflict between DuBois and Garvey was probably more personal than between he and Booker T. Washington. Garvey, who ironically enough was influenced by none other than Booker T. Washington, came to lead what was probably the greatest mass movement of black people in the US and parts of the world. Unlike DuBois, Garvey gained tremendous support for his movement. He created the Universal Negro Improvement Association and invested in everything from black doll factories to steam ships. He held gallant pageants and parades in which he made speeches extolling black pride and self empowerment.

Though his methods were popular, they were in direct conflict with DuBois' professional and intellectual approach. DuBois characterized Garvey as "a hard-working idealist," but complained "his methods are bombastic, wasteful, illogical and almost illegal." DuBois even charged Garvey's UNIA with swindling money from black Americans. Garvey's pro-capitalist black nationalism, clashed heavily with DuBois elitist (and also, oddly enough socialist-leaning) integrationist advocacy. The two traded fierce insults on more than one occasion, some as personal as a difference in skin color, with DuBois calling Garvey "a little fat, black man" and Garvey countering that DuBois was a "rabid mulatto...who needed to be horse-whipped." Such bickering served to debilitate the progress of the future planned Pan-African Congress, as participants chose sides. DuBois held his conference in 1923, and as expected the turnout was small. When Garvey's shipping venture failed financially, and the monies of its thousands of black investors was lost, it only served to confirm their most negative suspicions of his movement.  Seizing on these animosities and troubles, the FBI--who had long harassed and spied on Garvey, arrested and imprisoned him in 1925; he would later be forced into exile from the United States.

Following the 1923 conference DuBois visited Africa for the first time and gained a very romantic attachment to the continent, declaring "The Spell of Africa is upon me." Upon his return he began upon a great deal of self-reflection. Facing what looked to be an unending series of racism in the United States, feeling betrayed by white politicians, black organizations and others, he began to question whether integration was a feasible or proper goal. The newly emerging ideology of communism, made famous by the Russian revolution, also sparked DuBois' long held radical socialist leanings. As he became more disillusioned, he found that he could not rationalize his association with many of these individuals or organizations. He especially increasingly found himself at odds with The Crisis magazine, which though run by him employed a mostly white staff.

In 1933 he left the NAACP and took up new focuses. He completed several major works dealing with Africa and African-American attempts at freedom and empowerment. He became strongly interested in putting an end to Europe's colonial hold on Africa and established the 5th Pan-African Congress to address this issue. Attendees at this conference included such figures as Kwame Nkrumah (future president of Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta (future president of Kenya), and political activist George Padamore. The congress elected DuBois International President and cast him a "Father of Pan-Africanism." An antagonist and activist even in old age, DuBois became chairman of the Peace Information Center where he demanded the outlawing of atomic weapons. In the midst of the Cold War, the US Secretary of State denounced DuBois' demands as Soviet propaganda, while the Department of Justice ordered Du Bois and others to register as agents of a "foreign principal." Du Bois refused and was immediately indicted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act but sufficient evidence was lacking and Du Bois was acquitted.

These actions only spurred on the dissatisfaction DuBois held for the American system. His feelings were heard around the world in 1959. While in Peking he told a large audience, "In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a n*gger."