W. E. B. Du Bois

1868 – 1963

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist who in 1895 became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He co-founded the NAACP in 1909 and edited its magazine The Crisis for 24 years, while authoring landmark works including The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and Black Reconstruction in America (1935) that demolished prevailing white-supremacist narratives in American sociology and history. He spent the last years of his life in Ghana, where he died a citizen on the eve of the 1963 March on Washington.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM