William Edward Burghardt du Bois (1868–1963) was a leading Black intellectual of his time. Well-known for his belief in full civil rights, he inspired generations of freedom fighters through his work as a sociologist, socialist, historian, Pan-Africanist, civil rights activist, author, writer, editor, and scholar at the historically black Atlanta University. He authored numerous books including The Souls of Black Folk, Black Reconstruction in America, John Brown, and The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. He co-founded the NAACP—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and created the organization’s official publication The Crisis magazine, for which he was its editor and writer of countless articles for Black rights and women’s rights, including women’s right to vote. Du Bois also co-found the Niagara Movement and the Pan African Congresses—both dedicated to obtaining civil rights for Black Americans with the latter dedicated to creating a sense of brotherhood and collaboration among all people of African descent, irrespective of where they currently live.

From The Souls of Black Folk, du Bois wrote, “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

“The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn't bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.”