W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B Du Bois his full name is William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. He was born in Massachusetts on February 23, 1868. He first went to college at Fisk University in Nashville Tennessee. There he got his bachelor’s degree. Du Bois then went to Harvard where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree. He then became a professor at Atlanta University where he taught history, sociology and economics. He also was an editor and writer. Du Bois was also one of the co-founders of the NAACP; which is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. He was also a civil rights activist. W.E.B Du Bois died on August 27, 1963.

W.E.B Du Bois wrote many works including: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States (1896), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Dusk of Dawn (1940), Du Bois also wrote a number of essays and speeches that were very influential. They were about of a number of issues he dealt with in his life including schooling with segregation, black soldiers in the First World War and also black history, culture, and art.

Du Bois says, "It dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil." He said this quote in his piece Strivings of the Negro People. What this quote is saying is that since he is black he is different from the whites, he has the same wants and needs as them but he is in his own world because he is shut out by a veil that is his skin color.