his great chance has come, that once the frenzy of
revenge has spent itself this rabble of freed slaves
will be a tool ready to his hand” (NYT,7 May
1939, BR4). Bontemps’s style and historical reserve
may have piqued the interest of readers enough
that they themselves probed into Haitian history.
Bibliography
“A Tale of the Slave Revolt in Haiti.” New York Times, 7
May 1939, BR4.
James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins; Toussaint L’Ouverture
and the San Domingo Revolution.New York: Vintage
Books, 1963.
Jones, Kirkland C. Renaissance Man from Louisiana: A Bi-
ography of Arna Wendell Bontemps.Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1992.
Poore, Charles. “Books of the Times.” New York Times,
13 May 1939, 18.
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt(W. E. B.
DuBois)(1868–1963)
The eminent scholar and teacher, prolific writer,
accomplished editor, and tireless activist whose de-
liberate leadership and advocacy and visionary ef-
forts to create purposeful dialogue about political,
social, and intellectual matters shaped the Harlem
Renaissance in explicit and enduring ways. The so-
ciopolitical works and philosophies of DuBois, who
has long been regarded as the most influential
African-American intellectual of the 20th century,
continue to enrich contemporary analyses of race,
class, and political thought.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts,
DuBois was the son of Mary Sylvania Burghardt
and Alfred DuBois, a Haitian whose ancestry in-
cluded white French Huguenots. He grew up in the
protective and professionally ambitious New Eng-
land world of his maternal kin. The valedictorian of
his 13-member senior class at Great Barrington
High School, he delivered the graduation speech
on New England abolitionist Wendell Phillips. In
the wake of his mother’s death shortly after his
graduation from high school, DuBois received fi-
nancial support and counsel from his high school
teachers about the next stages of his academic de-
velopment. While he aspired to attend HARVARD
UNIVERSITY, DuBois matriculated at FISKUNIVER-
SITYin Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated with
honors in 1888 and then realized his long-held
dream to attend school in Cambridge, MAS-
SACHUSETTS. He began a second bachelor’s degree
program at Harvard University and earned a B.A.
and an M.A. degree before pursuing a two-year
course in sociology and economics in Germany at
the University of Berlin. Financial constraints pre-
vented him from earning a degree from the univer-
sity, and he returned to Massachusetts. In 1895, he
became the first African American to earn a Ph.D.
from Harvard. His thesis, “The Suppression of the
Slave Trade,” earned him university honors and
was published as part of the highly selective Har-
vard Historical Series. Throughout his life, he
maintained close and sometimes fractious relation-
ships with leading scholars and educational institu-
tions throughout the North and South. In addition
to teaching at WILBERFORCEUNIVERSITY, he was a
member of the faculty at ATLANTAUNIVERSITY
and the UNIVERSITY OFPENNSYLVANIA.
DuBois married Nina Gomer, a Wilberforce
student of African-American and German heritage
whom he had met at the school. The couple had
two children. Their son, Burghardt, died tragically
during infancy. Their only daughter, NINA
YOLANDEDUBOIS, a FISKUNIVERSITYgraduate
and teacher, married poet COUNTEECULLENin a
service that was touted as the African-American
social event of the year. Their union was short-
lived, however, and she later remarried. Yolande
passed away in 1960, and DuBois was forced to
confront the overwhelming loss of both children.
Following the death of his first wife in 1950,
DuBois married SHIRLEY GRAHAM, an accom-
plished playwright who shared his nationalist vi-
sion and worked alongside him to support
pan-Africanist dialogue, social reform, and political
freedom for all people. At the invitation of Kwame
Nkrumah, a graduate of LINCOLNUNIVERSITYand
the first president of an independent Ghana, the
couple settled in Accra, Ghana. DuBois became a
Ghanaian citizen at 95, in 1963 just before his
death there. Nkrumah presided over the formal
state funeral given in honor of DuBois. DuBois’s
descendants include a grandson, DuBois Williams,
and an adopted son, David DuBois.
DuBois linked his political activism to African-
American institutional efforts. In 1897, he collabo-
rated with Alexander Crummell, Paul Laurence124 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt