W. E. B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868 – 1963) was the leading Black intellectual and civil rights thinker of the twentieth century. The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University, Du Bois published pioneering sociological studies on urban Black life and history.

In 1903, he published The Souls of Black Folk, introducing the seminal concepts of 'double consciousness' and 'the color line'. Du Bois fiercely rejected accommodationism, demanding immediate political equality, unrestricted voting rights, and higher education for the 'Talented Tenth'. He co-founded the Niagara Movement (1905) and the NAACP (1909), editing its influential journal The Crisis for a quarter-century. In his later decades, he organized international Pan-African Congresses and spent his final years in Ghana compiling the Encyclopedia Africana.