W.E.B. DuBois

Overview

(Source: 2nd Grade Bio Cards)

W.E.B. DuBois was an African American who studied and wrote books about life among African Americans. He grew up in a town in Massachusetts that had very few African American citizens, and he always felt left out. When he went to college in Tennessee, the prejudice against African Americans was even worse, and he was determined to do something about it. He became a writer and speaker about how bad racism was in the United States and about the need for education for all races of people. He graduated from Harvard University in 1895, and in 1909 he and others started the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). He wrote articles for their magazine, The Crisis. At the beginning of World War 1, African Americans were not allowed to have leadership roles in the armed forces. But thanks to Du Bois' writings, Congress set up African American officer training schools.