Cecilian History

Cecilian History

William Edward Burghardt DuBois, to his followers, was by strong-willed devotion and intellectual perseverance, an assailant of injustice and a guardian of freedom. A forerunner of Black Independence and Pan-Africanism, he died in chosen refugee in his home away from home with his ancestors of a famous past Africa. Branded as a "radical," he was overlooked by those who hoped that his substantial contributions would be buried alongside of him. But, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, "history cannot ignore W.E.B. The degree to which he thrived disclosed the great magnitudes of the man."

He taught sociology at Atlanta University amongst 1898 and 1910. Du Bois had anticipated that social science could help abolish segregation, but he ultimately came to the decision that the only operative approach against racism was agitation. He dared the prevailing dogma of black accommodation as preached and practiced by Booker T. Washington, then the most significant black man in America. Washington advised blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard work and economic gain to win the respect of whites.

Du Bois's plentiful books include The Souls of Black Folk (1903), John Brown (1909), Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911), The Negro (1915), Dark water (1920) etc. It is his massive literary productivity on such a wide diversity of themes that offers the most substantial evidence to Du Bois's lifetime position that it was dynamic for blacks to support their own aesthetic and cultural values even as they made cherished developments toward social emancipation. In this he was contrasting by Booker T. Washington, who felt that the black should focus on developing practical and perfunctory skills before all else.

In the field of civil rights, and equal opportunity, Du Boise was one of perhaps the distinguished African American scholar-intellectual. His work ...