Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience At Harvard and Radcliffe

W.E.B. DU BOIS

W.KB. DU BOI S William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on 23 February 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts , wher e h e was th e onl y blac k membe r o f hi s high-school graduatin g clas s i n 1884 . Afte r a year' s mil l jo b an d a scholarship offer, he had the wherewithal to go to all-black Fisk University in Tennessee, where he was granted sophomore standing, edited the school paper, and received his A.B. in 1888. Enterin g Harvard (a longtime goal) as a junior, h e too k anothe r A.B . i n 1890 , an A.M. i n 1891 , and—after studying in Berlin—in 1895 became the first black to receive aHarvard Ph.D. His dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, was published in 1896 as the first book in the Harvard Historical Series. Short stints teaching Classics and sociology at Wilberforce University and th e Universit y o f Pennsylvani a le d t o a professorshi p i n th e socia l sciences at Atlanta University from 1897 to 1910. H e helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and conceived and edite d it s monthl y organ , The Crisis^ fro m 191 0 unti l 1934 , whe n disagreements led to his resignation and areturn to Atlanta University, from which he was forcibly retired in 1944. Throughout hi s life , D u Boi s produce d a torrent o f words—no t just speeches and works of scholarship and opinion, but even poetry, fiction, and drama. Hi s The Souls of Black Folk (1903) remain s one of th e supreme pieces of American writing. D u Bois received the Spingarn Medal in 1920, and mor e tha n a hal f doze n honorar y degree s her e an d abroad . Hi s increasing left-wing activity in later years resulted in indictment, trial, and acquittal. A t the age of 93 he joined the Communist Party and moved to Ghana, where he died on 27 August 1963. W.E.B. Du Bois on arriving at Harvard in 1888 (previously unpublished) W.E.B. Du Bois in 1915 72 W.E.B. Du Bois A Negro Student a t Harvar d at the End o f the Nineteent h Centur y Harvard Universit y in 1888 was a great institution o f learning. I t was two hundred and [fifty-two] years old and on its governing board were Alexander Agassiz, Phillips Brooks, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Charle s Francis Adams; and a John Quinc y Adams, but no t th e ex-President . Charles William Eliot, a gentleman by training and a scholar by broad study an d travel , wa s president . Amon g it s teacher s emerit i wer e Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell. Amon g the active teachers were Francis Child, Charles Eliot Norton, Justin Winsor, and John Trowbridge ; Fran k Taussig , Nathanie l Shaler , Georg e Palmer , William James , Franci s Peabody , Josia h Royce , Barret t Wendell , Edward Channing, and Albert Bushnell Hart. I n 1890 arrived a young instructor, Georg e Santayana . Seldom , i f ever , ha s an y America n university had such a galaxy of great men and fine teachers as Harvard in the decade between 188 5 and 1895 . To mak e m y own attitud e towar d th e Harvar d o f tha t da y clear , it must be remembered tha t I went to Harvard as a Negro, not simply by birth , bu t recognizin g mysel f a s a membe r o f a segregate d cast e whose situation I accepted. Bu t I was determined to work from within that cast e to find my way out. The Harvard of which most white students conceived I knew little. I had not even heard of Phi Beta Kappa, and of such important social organizations a s th e Hast y Puddin g Club , I kne w nothing . I wa s i n Harvard for education an d not for high marks, except as marks would insure m y staying. I did no t pic k ou t "snap " courses. I was there t o enlarge m y grasp o f th e meanin...