INTRODUCTION 1077
United States of America, 1638–1870(1896), was published as the first in the
Harvard Historical Studies Series.
In 1896, Du Bois married Nina Gomer, and together they had two children.
That same year, Du Bois accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania.
He was commissioned to produce the first systematic study of blacks,The
Philadelphia Negro,which was published in 1899. Interviewing more than five
thousand people for this study, Du Bois came to the conclusion that hard work,
persistence, and patience in seeking reforms were the keys to improving the lot of
African Americans in Philadelphia.
Following the study’s completion, Du Bois was called to Atlanta University,
where he taught for the next thirteen years. In Atlanta, Du Bois’s social and polit-
ical philosophies changed radically. The political climate in the late 1800s grew
increasingly antagonistic toward blacks as the remnants of Reconstruction disap-
peared and Plesseyv. Ferguson(1896) legalized “separate but equal” segregation.
Du Bois himself suffered numerous indignities as he traveled in the South. He
was especially repelled by the lynching of a black farm laborer in 1899 and by the
anti-black Atlanta riots of 1906.
During this period, Du Bois challenged Booker T. Washington, president of
Tuskegee Institute and African American leader. Washington advocated that his
people accept a posture of submissiveness and modest aspiration, claiming, “It is
at the bottom of life we must begin and not at the top.”* In his earlier days, Du
Bois might have agreed, but he was no longer willing to wait patiently at the
bottom. Instead, Du Bois argued that blacks must assert themselves, particularly
the “Talented Tenth” in the African American community, who would “be leaders
of thought and missionaries of culture among their people.”**
At Atlanta University, Du Bois began putting his ideas into political action. He
was the secretary of the first Pan-African Conference in 1900 and helped organize
the First Universal Races Congress in 1911 (both in London). In 1905, he was a
founder of the Niagara Movement, which led in 1910 to the founding of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During
this period, Du Bois made a number of sociological studies of blacks in the South.
He also published his most famous book,The Souls of Black Folks: Essays and
Sketches(1903).
With the founding of the NAACP in 1910, Du Bois left teaching to become
editor of the organization’s monthly organ,The Crisis.Du Bois’s move from
social scientist to political activist was now complete. For the next twenty-four
years, Du Bois wrote, edited, organized, and labored tirelessly for racial equality.
In 1926, Du Bois accepted an invitation to the Soviet Union and returned full
of praise for the new “Socialist Republic.” He was now convinced that African
Americans could find liberation in socialism. As his views moved further and fur-
ther left, his relations with the NAACP were strained. Du Bois now regarded the
NAACP’s ideal of integration as not only unattainable but as even undesirable.
When he publicly supported “nondiscriminatory segregation,” he was forced to
resign his position with the NAACP. He returned to teaching at Atlanta
University, where he remained until retiring in 1943.
*Quoted in Julius Lester, ed.,The Seventh Son: The Thought and Writings of W.E.B. Du Bois,two
volumes (New York: Random House, 1971), vol. 1, p. 42.
**Ibid., p. 44.