According to David Levering Lewis in his book W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Massachusetts in 1868. Du Bois was graduated from Fisk University and Harvard University and studied two years at the University of Berlin. He was the first black American to receive the degree of doctor of philosophy from Harvard. Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American leaders committed to an active struggle for racial equality. Du Bois was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and edited its journal, Crisis, for many years.
While in high school Du Bois showed a keen concern for the development of his race. At age fifteen he became the local correspondent for the New York Globe. When he graduated from high school, he wanted to attend Harvard. However, he lacked the financial resources go there but with the help of friends and family he was able to attend Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee. After graduation from Fisk, Du Bois entered Harvard as a junior. He received his bachelor's degree in 1890 and immediately began working toward his master's and doctoral degree.
While in Tennessee, Du Bois spent two summers teaching at a county school where he experienced prejudice and discrimination first hand, and learned about the overwhelming poverty and ignorance in the African American community. This experience put Du Bois on the path to become an activist for racial equality, a writer, editor, and public speaker.
While attending Harvard, Du Bois applied for and was awarded a grant to study abroad. Du Bois chose to study at the University of Berlin in Germany. During the two years Du Bois spent in Berlin, he began to see the race problems in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and the political development of Europe as one. This was the period of his life that united his studies of history, economics, and politics i...