It is fitting that W.E.B. Du Bois’s birthday falls on Black History month. On the 23rd day of this short month, year after year he gives us cause to celebrate him as we begin to bring this commemorative month to a close.
A world-renowned scholar, activist and organizer; Du Bois’ work was the precursor that informed much of the activism that came out of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. But more so, he was a radical humanist who dedicated his life to the freedom and liberation of people of African descent, in the U.S. and across the diaspora.
W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University, in 1895. Later in life he was awarded honorary doctorates from American universities such as Fisk, Wilberforce, and Atlanta University; as well as some institutions abroad such as Humboldt University in Berlin, Prague’s Charles University and the University of Ghana.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
Beyond his academic accolades, Du Bois was an organizer and a global human rights activist. He was a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910, where he served as the inaugural director of research and editor-in-chief of “The Crisis” magazine for over two decades, a co-founder of the Pan African Congress launched in 1919 and an ardent leader in a global peace movement that fought for the denuclearization of the Western world after World War II. In 1951, the federal government put an 83-year-old Du Bois on trial for his involvement with this movement on the charge of acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Albert Einstein came to testify on his behalf and the case was summarily dismissed. It is no stretch to say that W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the most influential African Americans ever.
But why does it seem like we do not claim him here?
Du Bois spent nearly one quarter of his 95-year life in Atlanta. He did two stints at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University); serving as a professor of history and economics from 1896 to 1910, and again from 1934 to 1944, when he was reappointed as professor of sociology. Du Bois produced some of his most important work right here in Atlanta’s West End. For example, it is here where he penned “The Souls of Black Folk,” as well as other iconic texts, such as “Black Reconstruction” and “Dusk of Dawn”. For decades, he led the Atlanta University Studies, a series of systematic empirical studies on the social and economic conditions of African Americans in the South — the first of its kind in the United States. In 1940, he founded the journal “Phylon” at Atlanta University, an outlet for scholarship on race and culture. Eight decades later, Phylon is still running today.
In Atlanta, Du Bois experienced some of the highest heights of his professional life, but also the lowest of his personal life. In 1899, he and his first wife, Nina Gomer Du Bois, lost their first-born child and only son, Burghardt. Due to cruel Jim Crow laws no hospital would admit their baby during his deadly bout of fever. The Du Bois’s were also here during the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre, where an estimated 100 African Americans were massacred in the streets by an angry white mob. So traumatic was that experience that W.E.B that relocated his shaken wife to Baltimore, where she lived out her days heartbroken from their loss. He channeled his sorrow into two heart-wrenching pieces, “Of the Passing of the First Born”, in Souls, and “A Litany of Atlanta”, published in The Independent and as a self-published pamphlet.
“History cannot ignore W.E.B. Du Bois. Because history has to reflect truth and Dr. Du Bois was a tireless explorer and gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people.” So declared Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a 1968 posthumous commemoration of what would have been Du Bois’ 100th birthday. Many institutions around the world have taken heed.
And yet, Atlanta remains ambivalent about his legacy in this city. In a way, he is our forgotten freedom fighter.
Today, dozens of historical markers, honors, buildings and awards around the world commemorating Du Bois’ scholarship and activism bear his name. American cities have installed historical markers that note his contributions: One in Philadelphia, where he conducted the very first empirical sociological study of a community in the United States, “The Philadelphia Negro,” and the other in his birthplace of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. A massive 28-story library building bearing his name is at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where the bulk of his voluminous archival papers are housed. The W.E.B. Du Bois Medal remains one of the highest honors Harvard University can confer, coming in second only to an honorary doctorate. In addition to two lecture series bearing his name, in 2022, Humboldt University in Berlin unveiled a W.E.B. Du Bois memorial marker on its campus. Like Martin Luther King Jr., his tomb in Accra, Ghana bears an eternal flame and a W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Center to honor his legacy.
In 2013, Clark Atlanta University installed a bronze bust of Du Bois on campus. However, there are no public roads, buildings, or historical markers acknowledging him in Atlanta. In a city that prides itself on memorializing its singular contribution to civil and human rights activists, his absence looms large.
Happy birthday W.E.B. Du Bois. Your legacy lives on.
Dr. Karida L. Brown is a professor of sociology at Emory University. She is the co-author of “The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois” (with José Itzigsohn) and co-editor of “The Oxford Handbook of W.E.B. Du Bois”.
