(b. February 23, 1868; d. August 27, 1963) American writer, sociologist, and civil rights leader.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. His mother worked as a maid for local white families, despite being partially paralyzed in her hands and legs by a stroke. When Du Bois was just a year old, his father left home, ostensibly to look for work, and never returned. Though life was difficult and money hard to come by, Du Bois was bright and articulate and he excelled in school. Most of his friends were sons of the middle class white families in town. Du Bois's upbringing was relatively free of racial discrimination.

In 1885, Du Bois moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend historically black Fisk University, where, despite his self-described "blithely European and imperialist" outlook, he began to articulate his ideas about race relations and...