Happy birthday, Dr. Du Bois! [View all]

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Today would have been the 144th birthday of WEB Du Bois, the great scholar, civil rights and peace activist.

Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, Du Bois quickly emerged as one of the 20th century's outstanding thinkers and social activists. Armed with a PhD from Harvard University, the young scholar came to national prominence at the turn of the century when he challenged Tuskegee University head Booker T. Washington's accommodationist policies.

His famous collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk remains poignant and relevant even today. Du Bois went on to help found the Niagara Movement, a group of activists, workers and scholars devoted to fighting segregation and racism.

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Handcuffed at the age of 83 during the McCarthy period of Cold War repression, Du Bois ran for the U.S. Senate in New York and won over 100,000 votes. He joined the Communist Party in 1961 and died in Ghana in 1963, the day before the iconic civil rights march on Washington, led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...

Read the entire article here: http://peoplesworld.org/university-of-pennsylvania-awards-du-bois-honorary-doctorate/