W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)

W. E. B. Du Bois was an American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. Born in Massachusetts in 1868, he attended Fisk University and Harvard University. As a sociologist, Du Bois began to study and document the oppression of Black Americans and their striving for equality in the 1890s. By 1903 Du Bois had produced one of his major works, The Souls of Black Folk, in which he wrote: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” A few years later, Du Bois joined other black leaders to found the Niagra Movement, a group that tried to abolish all distinctions based on race. Although the Movement disbanded, it served as a blueprint for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During his life, Du Bois joined both the Socialist and Communist parties, and was denied a U.S. passport for traveling internationally. A passport was later granted, and he used it to visit China, Russia, Europe and Ghana. In 1963, at the age of 95, he became a naturalized citizen of Ghana; he died there that year, and was given a state funeral.

POEMS
The Song of the Smoke