Postcolonial Theory and Literature

W. E. B. Du Bois was born in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. At fifteen, Du Bois was a race correspondent for the New York Globe. He encountered racism early, but gained a deeper knowledge of it teaching at a county school while an undergraduate at Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee. Du Bois earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University. His doctoral thesis, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870, is the first volume of the Harvard Historical Series.

Du Bois initiated the scientific approach to social phenomena in 1896 with his work The Philadelphia Negro. He continued developing methodology while serving on the faculty of Atlanta University, presenting historical versions of African and African-American cultural development. Du Bois engaged in a growing ideological controversy with Booker T. Washington (1856–1915), who preferred industrial to liberal education and limited economic growth to political power. Du Bois proposed higher education of the "Talented Tenth."

In 1903, Du Bois saw the publication of his landmark The Souls of Black Folk.

In 1906, Du Bois organized the "Niagara Movement," leading on to the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In1909, Du Bois began editing the chief organ of the NAACP, Crisis magazine; he continued as editor for twenty-five years. Du Bois's scathing editorials often led to battles within the ranks of the association.

During World War I, Du Bois used Crisis to lead Congress to open black officer training schools, bring legal action against lynchers, and set up a federal work plan for returning veterans. Crisis subscription grew from 1,000 in 1909 to over 10,000 in 1919. Du Bois's "Returning Soldier" editorial marked the climax of the period.

In 1919, Du Bois represented the NAACP at the Peace Conference in France, where he organized the abortive Pan-African conference. In 1921, Du Bois planned a second Pan-African meeting. That same year, Du Bois met the populist Jamaican leader Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) and visited Africa for the first time. With the publication of "The Negro Mind Looks Out" (1925), Du Bois anticipated postcolonial criticism by fifty years.

In 1927, Du Bois visited the Soviet Union. He commented, "My day in Russia was the day of Communist beginnings." Du Bois left the NAACP in 1933 and rejoined Atlanta University. His works on the black freedom struggle, Black Reconstruction and Dusk of Dawn, were published in 1935 and 1940, respectively.

As an associate consultant to the American delegation, Du Bois charged the fledgling United Nations with imperialism in1945.

The Fifth Pan-African Congress, also in 1945, included Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), the first president of Ghana; George Padmore (1903–1959), the international revolutionary; and Jomo Kenyatta (c. 1890–1978), the first president of Kenya. Du Bois was elected International President, and was named "Father of Pan-Africanism." His The World and Africa was published in 1947.

As a member of the American Labor Party, Du Bois asserted, "Drunk with power, we are leading the world to hell in a new colonialism with the same old human slavery, which once ruined us, to a third world war, which will ruin the world."

Du Bois demanded the outlawing of atomic weapons as chairman of the Peace Information Center. He was indicted under Foreign Agents Registration Act, but was acquitted on insufficient evidence. In 1959, Du Bois told a large audience in Beijing: "In my own country for nearly a century I have been nothing but a NIGGER." Du Bois left the United States permanently for Ghana in 1961. He directed the state-sponsored Encyclopedia Africana at Nkrumah's request and became a Ghanaian citizen and member of the Communist party.

Du Bois died in Ghana in 1963.

SOURCE: Adapted from Gerald C. Hynes, "A Biographical Sketch of W. E. B. Du Bois." Available from http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html.