W.E.B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was the best known spokesperson for African American rights and was the co-founder. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He grew up in a mostly European American town in which he identified himself of mixed descent. Although the townspeople knew this fact, Du Bois was able to freely attend school with whites and was not subjected to prejudice, rather his teachers avidly supported him in his academic studies. In 1885, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend Fisk University. It was only there that he had his first encounter with racism in the form of Jim Crow laws. After he had earned a bachelor's from Fisk in 1888 he went on to Harvard using money he earned from odd jobs, scholarships and loans, after which becoming the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895. One year later he would publish a study called The Philadelphia Negro, thus beginning his writing career. Later on he would push for equal rights for African Americans, although W.E.B Du Bois would only settle for full rights as his dispute with with Booker T. Washington would show. Booker T. Washington advocated for only vocational education for blacks, yet Du Bois wanted only full rights for blacks and thought Booker T. Washington's method inferior. In 1909 Du Bois would become one of the founders of the NAACP, an organization which would help in the advancement of colored people. Du Bois not only fought for African American rights but women's rights as well. Du Bois had an expansive writing career, one of which was The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of 14 essays, in 1903. W.E.B. Du Bois died on August 27, 1963, at the age of 95, in Accra, Ghana.
POEM
The black man plight
under the white man's jurisdiction
No man should have to live a shadow's life
neath plethora of prejudice
In a land of liberty
Upon seeing such oppression
Du Bois in his mind
Couldn't stand for an ounce
That any man could be considered unequal
In a country of freedom
And so thus came about
a wish for an end
An advancement for the people
By no means low enough
To stand neath another man's shadow
In the country of America
under the white man's jurisdiction
No man should have to live a shadow's life
neath plethora of prejudice
In a land of liberty
Upon seeing such oppression
Du Bois in his mind
Couldn't stand for an ounce
That any man could be considered unequal
In a country of freedom
And so thus came about
a wish for an end
An advancement for the people
By no means low enough
To stand neath another man's shadow
In the country of America