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Speaker 1: The Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to this Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that pays tribute to people of the past by

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Speaker 1: telling their stories. Today, I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a central figure in the fight for

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Speaker 1: racial upliftment and equality in twentieth century America, a controversial

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Speaker 1: and consequential activists by the name of W. E. B.

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Speaker 1: Du Bois. The day was February twenty third, eighteen sixty

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Speaker 1: eight author and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du

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Speaker 1: Bois was born. He went on to become one of

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Speaker 1: the most influential black civil rights leaders of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 1: In addition to his work advocating for racial justice and

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Speaker 1: an end to segregation, du Bois penn several pioneering essays

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Speaker 1: on race studies and is considered to be one of

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Speaker 1: the founders of modern sociology. William Edward Burghard du Bois

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Speaker 1: was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to parents Alfred and

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Speaker 1: Mary Sylvina. They were one of the few black families

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Speaker 1: in the mostly white town, but as New England residents,

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Speaker 1: they were shielded from the harsher forms of racial prejudice

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Speaker 1: that still raged in the Southern States. William's father walked

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Speaker 1: out on the family in eighteen seventy, leaving his wife

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Speaker 1: Mary to raise the boy on her own. She and

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Speaker 1: her son eventually moved into her parents' house, and she

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Speaker 1: took a job as a housekeeper to make ends meet.

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Speaker 1: As a teen, W E. B. Du Boys became the

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Speaker 1: first African American to attend the prestigious Great Barrington High School.

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Speaker 1: Throughout his time there, he was often the only person

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Speaker 1: of color in his classes, a fact that did not

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Speaker 1: go ignored by some of his more cruel minded classmates. Thankfully,

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Speaker 1: his white teachers recognized his intelligence and drive and made

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Speaker 1: sure he received the same academic opportunities as everyone else.

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Speaker 1: It was also in high school that Dubois began to

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Speaker 1: focus on what would become his life's great passion, the

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Speaker 1: fight against racial inequality and the social advancement of black Americans.

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Speaker 1: At age fifteen, he started writing editorials for the New

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Speaker 1: York Globe, making him the nation's youngest black journalist. His

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Speaker 1: articles challenged racist conventions in American society while also highlighting

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Speaker 1: the accomplishments and contributions of black citizens. Dubois graduated at

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Speaker 1: the top of his class in eighteen eighty four, the

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Speaker 1: same year that his mother passed away from tuberculosis. The

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Speaker 1: sixteen year old was alone and penniless, but members of

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Speaker 1: his community came to his aid. They helped secure him

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Speaker 1: a scholarship to Fisk University, a liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Speaker 1: Du Bois spent three years at Fisk University, where he

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Speaker 1: studied sociology, economics, and history, eventually graduating with a Bachelor

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Speaker 1: of the Arts degree. During his time there, du Boys

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Speaker 1: was exposed to the realities of racism and poverty on

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Speaker 1: a level he had never experienced. In western Massachusetts, he

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Speaker 1: encountered Jim Crow laws for the first time and began

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Speaker 1: leading protests against the school's segregationist policies. After graduating from

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Speaker 1: Fisk in eighteen eighty eight, Duboys received a scholarship to

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Speaker 1: attend Harvard University. He went on to earn his master's

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Speaker 1: degree from Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and

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Speaker 1: then followed it up by becoming the first black American

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Speaker 1: to earn a doctorate from Harvard. Despite his academic achievements, however,

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Speaker 1: Duboys had a hard time securing a job at a

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Speaker 1: major university. Instead, he accepted a position at Wilberforce University,

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Speaker 1: a historically black college in Ohio. He then spent a

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Speaker 1: year teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also

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Speaker 1: wrote his first major work, eighteen ninety nine's The Philadelphia Negro.

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Speaker 1: That investigative study focused on this city's Seventh Ward neighborhood

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Speaker 1: and was the first sociological case study of a black community.

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Speaker 1: When the study was complete, du Boys became a professor

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Speaker 1: at Atlanta University, where he remained for the next thirteen years.

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Speaker 1: During that time, he rose to national prominence with the

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Speaker 1: publication of his seminal work The Souls of Black Folk

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Speaker 1: in nineteen oh three. In that collection of essays, Duboys

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Speaker 1: explored the idea that the quote central problem of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century is the problem of the color line. He

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Speaker 1: went on to argue that white Americans should take responsibility

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Speaker 1: for their contributions to racial inequality, and that Black Americans

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Speaker 1: shouldn't settle for half measures. In one especially controversial essay,

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Speaker 1: Duboys took aim at Booker T. Washington, the founder of

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Speaker 1: the Tuskegee Institute, which taught agricultural skills to black men.

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Speaker 1: Washington had asserted that vocational training, like the kind his

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Speaker 1: school provided was of greater value to Black Americans than

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Speaker 1: social privileges such as attending college or holding public office.

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Speaker 1: Do Boys criticize that stance, insisting that nothing short of

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Speaker 1: full equality for African Americans should be accepted. As he

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Speaker 1: famously put it, quote, education must not simply teach work,

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Speaker 1: It must teach life. In the souls of black folk.

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Speaker 1: D Boys also outlined his idea of double consciousness, a

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Speaker 1: state of being experienced by persecuted groups and which one

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Speaker 1: sense of identity is divided. Du Boys applied the concept

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Speaker 1: to the experience of Black Americans, writing quote, it is

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Speaker 1: a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always

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Speaker 1: looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of

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Speaker 1: measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that

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Speaker 1: looks on in amused contempt and pity, one ever feels

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Speaker 1: his twoeness an American a Negro. Two souls, two thoughts,

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Speaker 1: two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body

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Speaker 1: whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

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Speaker 1: After publishing the Souls of Black Folk. Du Boys became

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Speaker 1: one of the most prominent African American activists of his time.

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Speaker 1: He continued to write and speak about racial injustice, establishing

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Speaker 1: himself as an early leader in the fight for civil rights.

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Speaker 1: In July of nineteen oh five, he co founded the

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Speaker 1: Niagara Movement with William Monroe Trotter. Four years later, that

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Speaker 1: organization was dismantled and rebuilt into the n double ACP,

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Speaker 1: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Du

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Speaker 1: Boys and several other members of the Niagara Movement helped

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Speaker 1: establish the new group, alongside white allies such as journalist

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Speaker 1: Mary White Avington and constitutional lawyer more Field Story. Much

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Speaker 1: like its forerunner, the nuble ACP was created to fight

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Speaker 1: racial discrimination both on the local and national fronts. Nineteen

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Speaker 1: ten to nineteen thirty four, W. E. B. Du Bois

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Speaker 1: edited the association's monthly journal, The Crisis. He used his

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Speaker 1: position as editor to shine a spotlight on the still

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Speaker 1: widespread practice of lynching and to advocate for national legislation

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Speaker 1: to outlaw the brutal practice. Under du bois guidance, The

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Speaker 1: Crisis's readership grew to one hundred thousand and the NAACP

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Speaker 1: came to be regarded as the leading protest organization for

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Speaker 1: black rights. During his ten year as editor, du Boys

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Speaker 1: also stood up for young black student protesters who were

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Speaker 1: widely condemned for being too disruptive in the nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 1: Du Boys pushed against that narrative, saying, quote here again,

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Speaker 1: we are always actually or potentially saying hush to children

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Speaker 1: and students. We are putting on the soft pedal. We

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Speaker 1: are teaching them subterfuge and compromise. We are leading them

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Speaker 1: around to backdoors for fear that they shall express themselves.

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Speaker 1: And yet, when ever and wherever we do this, we

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Speaker 1: are wrong, absolutely and eternally wrong. Unless we are willing

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Speaker 1: to train our children to be cowards, to run like

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Speaker 1: dogs when they are kicked, to whine and lick the

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Speaker 1: hand that slaps them, we have got to teach them

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Speaker 1: self realization and self expression. Du Boys eventually resigned his

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Speaker 1: post at the crisis due to ideological differences, but he

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Speaker 1: would return to the NUBACP ten years later to serve

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Speaker 1: as its Director of Special Research. In that role, which

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Speaker 1: he held for four years, du Boys attended the United

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Speaker 1: Nations Founding Conference in nineteen forty five. During his time

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Speaker 1: as a delegate, he lobbied the UN to acknowledge the

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Speaker 1: suffering of black Americans and to help put an end

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Speaker 1: to colonialism in Africa. Du Boys had long been a

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Speaker 1: vocal proponent of Pan Africanism, a movement to build solidarity

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Speaker 1: among Africans and people of African descent throughout the world.

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Speaker 1: He was a key figure in oregizing several Pan African conferences,

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Speaker 1: where leaders from Africa and the Americas assembled to discuss

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Speaker 1: racism and oppression, issues with which they were all familiar.

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Speaker 1: Shortly before his work at the UN, the FBI started

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Speaker 1: a file on du Boys. He was a self professed

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Speaker 1: socialist and had written extensively in favor of unionized labor.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen fifties, at the height of the Second

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Speaker 1: read Scare, du Boys came under fire for his involvement

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Speaker 1: with an anti nuclear warfare group called the Peace Information Center.

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Speaker 1: He and four others were charged with failing to register

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Speaker 1: the organization with the US government, a highly suspicious oversight

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Speaker 1: in the era of McCarthyism. The judge later dismissed the case,

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Speaker 1: but the damage to Dubois reputation was already done. Many

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Speaker 1: of his former colleagues, including those at the NAACP, avoided

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Speaker 1: contact with him and never offered a word in his defense,

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Speaker 1: adding insult to injury. The US government then revoked Duboys'

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Speaker 1: passport as a precautionary measure, preventing him from leaving the

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Speaker 1: country for eight years. By the time he was allowed

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Speaker 1: to travel again, Dubois was ninety three years old, but

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Speaker 1: he didn't let age slow him down. In nineteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: he moved to Ghana and began working on an encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: of the African diaspora. His health declined over the next

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Speaker 1: two years there, but in nineteen sixty three, the US

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Speaker 1: refused to renew his passport, preventing his return. As a

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Speaker 1: symbolic protest, du Boys became a citizen of Ghana, though

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Speaker 1: he never renounced his American citizenship. That year, du Boys

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Speaker 1: celebrated his ninety fifth birthday with Ghana's royal family, and

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Speaker 1: when he died six months later on August twenty seventh,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, he was honored with a state funeral

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Speaker 1: in the capital city of Acra. The very next day,

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Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Junior gave his landmark I have a

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Speaker 1: dream speech at the March on Washington. Du Bois had

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Speaker 1: died far from his native country, shunned by the government

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Speaker 1: he had sought so long to improve. But the work

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Speaker 1: he began and the fight for equality that he championed

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Speaker 1: lived on. I'm Gabelusier, and hopefully you now know a

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Speaker 1: little more about history today than you did yesterday. If

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Speaker 1: you have a second and you're so inclined, consider following

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI eight C show.

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Speaker 1: You can also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or you can send your feedback directly to me by

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Speaker 1: writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: Chandler May's for producing the show, and thanks to you

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Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for

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Speaker 1: another Day in History class