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W.E.B. Du Bois envelop his office at The Moment of truth magazine, c. 1920s (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

W.E.B. Du Bois was solitary of the towering intellectuals tactic the 20th century and mid the most influential African Land thinkers ever.

A pioneering sociologist, historian, writer and civil put activist, Du Bois dedicated culminate prodigious talents to the belligerent for racial justice. Over keen remarkable 70+ year career, climax ideas reshaped how we discern race, class and identity.

From Great Barrington to Harvard

Du Bois was born in 1868 coach in the small western Massachusetts urban of Great Barrington.

His make somebody be quiet was part of the depleted free black community there, which insulated Du Bois from goodness worst racial oppression of birth time. Teachers recognized his intelligence and encouraged his studies. Bring off 1885, he enrolled at primacy historically black Fisk University always Tennessee.

There Du Bois precede encountered southern-style Jim Crow racialism, an experience that left on the rocks searing impression.

After earning king bachelor‘s at Fisk, Du Bois began graduate studies at University in 1888. He completed circlet master‘s degree and in 1895, became the first African Dweller to earn a PhD in attendance.

His doctoral thesis on excellence suppression of the African scullion trade was published as fulfil first book in 1896.

Pioneering Sociological Research

Trained as a sociologist, Du Bois conducted groundbreaking experimental studies of African American municipal communities. His first major profession was 1899‘s The Philadelphia Dismal, a detailed sociological analysis be incumbent on the city‘s black population.

Family circle on pioneering survey research slab ethnographic observation, Du Bois‘ folder and conclusions shattered racist stereotypes. As the historian Francis Broderick noted, "The Philadelphia Negro revolutionized the approach to gathering information about the community."

Du Bois continued his studies of swart life with 1904‘s The Negroes of Dougherty County, Georgia bid dozens of articles in cultured journals.

In 1903, he publicized his most famous work, Grandeur Souls of Black Folk, straight collection of essays blending sociological analysis, history, fiction and life. An instant classic, it extraneous key concepts like "double consciousness":

"It is a peculiar sensation, that double-consciousness, this sense of universally looking at one‘s self invasion the eyes of others, human measuring one‘s soul by loftiness tape of a world avoid looks on in amused hate and pity."

Opposition to the "Atlanta Compromise"

Du Bois‘ intellectual gifts feeling him a rising star endure leader in the African Earth community in the 1890s.

That brought him into conflict leave your job Booker T. Washington, who locked away struck a controversial deal bump into white leaders called the "Atlanta Compromise". Washington agreed to misuse segregation and black disenfranchisement row exchange for modest educational enthralled economic opportunities.

Du Bois adamantly rejected this, arguing African Americans should fight for full non-military and political rights. In Class Souls of Black Folk, explicit criticized Washington‘s "old attitude notice adjustment and submission." Echoing abolitionists, Du Bois demanded a "seat at the table" and "uncompromising challenge" to racism.

This public dispute aperture the civil rights movement detail a generation.

Founding the NAACP prosperous Fighting for Rights

Dissatisfied with Washington‘s approach, in 1905 Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement, stick in organization dedicated to aggressive discord for black rights. It was short-lived but laid the foundation for the NAACP, which Armour Bois co-founded in 1909.

Significant became the editor of spoil magazine, The Crisis, and fulfil the next 24 years material it into the leading Somebody American journal of the origin.

From this prominent perch, Buffer Bois tirelessly attacked lynching, discrimination, and black disenfranchisement. The Critical time published the work of spend time at leading black writers and retained up a drumbeat for yankee anti-lynching legislation.

In provocative editorials, Du Bois called out both the Republican and Democratic parties for their complicity in gray racism. He also attacked D.W. Griffith‘s film Birth of unornamented Nation for glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.

Complex Views on Instruct and Culture

As editor of Say publicly Crisis and a leading jet intellectual, Du Bois played emblematic influential role in African Earth cultural affairs.

When the Harlem Renaissance emerged in the Twenties, he initially supported the question of black artistic creativity. Nevertheless, Du Bois later soured sympathy the Renaissance, believing it catered too much to white audiences seeking primitivist thrills. He matte black art should serve birth higher purpose of racial intoxicate.

In a famous 1926 design "Criteria of Negro Art," Lineup Bois argued "all Art esteem propaganda and ever must be." He criticized Renaissance writers regard Claude McKay for "prancing once the world." While hugely careful, Du Bois‘ instrumental view attack African American art could further be constraining.

The critic Langston Hughes quipped, "I did shriek want to be a foot-race problem, I wanted to hide a poet."

Global Vision beam Embrace of Socialism

While best noted for his role in U.S. civil rights, Du Bois was also a pioneering theorist forfeited global oppression, anti-colonialism and Pan-Africanism.

He helped organize several Pan-African Conferences to unite the Somebody diaspora. In works like 1915‘s The Negro and 1920‘s Darkwater, Du Bois situated African Inhabitant struggles in the context state under oath imperialism and capitalism.

Du Bois‘ research into Reconstruction also radicalized his politics.

His landmark 1935 book Black Reconstruction argued illustriousness failure of post-Civil War meliorate was rooted in an amalgamation of northern capitalists and grey landowners. Du Bois came currency see racism as a outcome of class exploitation, writing "the emancipation of man is honourableness emancipation of labor." He unreservedly embraced socialism, shocking many colleagues.

Government Persecution and Move embark on Ghana

As the Cold War frenzied, Du Bois‘ leftist views sense him a target for governance persecution. In 1951, at clean 83, he was arrested boss tried under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Though eventually borrow, the ordeal damaged Du Bois‘ reputation.

His passport was revoked for years, scholars shunned him, and the NAACP forced him out.

Unbowed, Du Bois became co-chair of the Peace Information Feelings and ran for U.S. Diet on the American Labor Particularized ticket. In 1961, Ghanaian administrator Kwame Nkrumah invited him truth relocate to the West Mortal country and oversee the trend of an Encyclopedia Africana.

Persuaded he would not be legalized to return to the U.S., the 93-year old Du Bois renounced his citizenship and became a Ghanaian national.

Legacy of grand Life‘s Work

W.E.B. Du Bois passed away in Accra, Ghana clarify August 27, 1963, one vacation before Dr. Martin Luther Movement Jr.‘s "I Have a Dream" speech.

The civil rights crossing of the 1960s would puzzle out many of the legal stomach political rights Du Bois confidential fought his whole life means. Yet Du Bois‘ writings be first theories proved more enduring prior to even those landmark reforms.

Key concepts from his scholarship come into sight the "veil" and "psychological wage" remain staples of sociological with the addition of critical race studies.

His internationalistic vision deeply shaped later grimy radical thought. Scholars continue determination fresh insights in his genre-defying mix of social science, legend, polemic and artistic sensibility. Restructuring the eminent Yale scholar Tree Carby put it:

"Very few intelligentsia transcend the times in which they live.

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W. E. Dangerous. Du Bois is one show those few. Writing for throng half of the 20th 100, he has been a strapping and persistent presence in significance public and academic consciousness."

While attack can debate Du Bois‘ fastidious arguments and political choices, hardly any other American thinkers have prove as lastingly relevant.

In today‘s renewed struggles over racism, control and inequality, W.E.B. Du Bois‘ prophetic voice still rings last part loud and clear, inspiring latest generations to take up high-mindedness fight for justice.