W.E.B Dubois

It is not only shortsightedness but also incorrect for anyone in America to believe that the push for improvements within the African American community , both internally and how the country regarded them , began in the latter half of the 20th century . Those people who came at that time stood on the shoulders of giants who helped to give them the foundation of independence and self esteem for the millions of Americans who were also , Americans of color . One of these tireless pioneers was W .E .B Dubois . His accomplishments were endless . It seems

as though in every important event in the history of civil rights for nearly thirty years Dubois was taking part in it through one capasasity or another . Dubois tireless desire to help those within his race that were less fortunate and who were victims of the ideology of self hatred and inferiority

Dubois was born on February 23 , 1868 in Massachusetts in the town of Great Barrington . At the time , the population did not exceed 5 ,000 people and as a result , the African American population did not exceed by all accounts , fifty people . Dubois , from an early age , did not prescribe to the prevailing wisdom that African Americans were inferior to whites in any capacity and that it had been the environment in America which has prevented the advancement of the African race . In high school , Dubois became a local correspondent for the New York Globe . It was at this time , that Dubois learned that he not only possessed a keen sense of writing , but that he was going to use that skill in to advocate the necessary change in to improve the condition of the African American in America . Race relations at the end of the 20th century were , from the end of the Civil war until the end of the 19th century , suffering a low point in its history . Jim Crowe and other oppressive laws helped to keep African Americans in a quasi form of slavery in the South . In the North , African Americans were making moderate gains but were still treated as second class citizens . The North had abandoned Reconstruction because they were not the most ardent advocate for the equality of the African American . Such sentiments of defeatism served as a great impediment to the realization of equal rights in America for African Americans . Dubois , wherever he went , as well as all African Americans at that time , felt the consequences of such beliefs . Some chose to fight , others chose to submit . Dubois would always choose the former during his life

Du Bois earned a degree from Harvard University in 1890 but in 1895 became the first African American ever to earn a PhD from the prestigious school . Dubois began to teach at the University of Ohio as well as the University of Pennsylvania . Dubois then went to Atlanta University and established the Sociology Department there . Dubois was going to begin his formal career as not only writing about the need...