Movement1868
W.E.B. Du Bois Born
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard and co-founded the NAACP in 1909, advocating for full civil and political rights for African Americans through scholarship and activism.
Why It Matters
Du Bois's intellectual leadership and founding of the NAACP established the organizational framework for the modern civil rights movement and advanced the principle that all citizens deserve equal protection under the law.