Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in the western Massachusetts town of Great Barrington, to a family whose ancestry was French Huguenot on his father's side and Dutch and African on his mother's side. Du Bois' father Alfred Du Bois left his family when his son was a young boy. Du Bois lived with his mother Mary Sylvina Burghardt Du Bois until her death in 1884. Left penniless, Du Bois moved in with an aunt and worked as a timekeeper at a local mill to support himself. He graduated from high school that same year, the only black student in his class. An outstanding student, Du Bois was encouraged by his principal to attend college. With the aid of a scholarship, he enrolled at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1885. Du Bois graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1888 and entered Harvard University as a junior, where he...