WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS 1868–1963

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, scholar, historian, sociologist, novelist, editor, political activist, radical democrat, socialist, pacifist, Pan-Africanist, and communist wrote these prophetic words nearly a century ago and they continue to resonate. Du Bois began his emergence as one of America's and the world's public intellectuals with the publication of The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of essays about the complexities of race in America. Du Bois acquired the persona of the stereotypic reserved, socially conservative and religious New Englander. Du Bois graduated from high school with high honours, the first black graduate of the school. Du Bois' mother Mary died soon after. Du Bois preferred Harvard University but some of his white benefactors, who had agreed to donate one hundred dollars annually to his educational costs, rejected that choice. At the age of 17 as a first-year student at Fisk, Du Bois literally stepped within the 'Veil' he so aptly described in The Souls of Black Folk.