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Essay on William Edward Burghardt Du Bois 1868 - 1963
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963), black American activist, historian and sociologist, who conducted the initial research on the black experience in the United States. He was an early leader in the 20th-century African American protest movement, and an advocate of civil rights, Pan-African, and Black Power movements in the United States (Robert J. Norrell).
W.E.B Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts to Alfred and Mary DuBois (Wikipedia encyclopedia). He first came face to face with the realities of racism in 19th century America while attending Fisk University in Nashville (W.E.B Du Bois). After graduating with a B.A in 1890 from Fisk, he received scholarship that enabled him to attend Harvard where he studied history and philosophy and it was at this time he wrote about the history of the slave trade --that is still considered one of the most comprehensive work.
In 1895 he became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. By that time, Du Bois had begun his research into the historical and sociological conditions of black Americans and his doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, was published in 1896 (Robert J. Norrell). At the age of twenty-six, with twenty years of schooling behind him, DuBois accepted a teaching job at Wilberforce in Ohio in order to begin his life's work (Gerald C. Hynes).
The year 1896 was the dawn of a new era for DuBois. With his doctoral degree and two undistinguished years at Wilberforce behind him, he readily accepted a special fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania to conduct a research project in Philadelphia's seventh ward slums. This responsibility afforded him the opportunity to study Blacks as a social system (Gerald C. Hynes). In 1899 The Philadelphia Negro, the first sociological text on a black community was published by him....
