W. E. B. Du Bois Character Analysis in Stamped from the Beginning

Du Bois is the fourth figure that Kendi focuses on in the book, with arguably the most rich and complicated career. Born in Great Barrington, a small town in Massachusetts in 1868, Du Bois was an exceptionally talented student who attended Fisk University, which was at the time the premiere Black institution in the country. At Fisk, he internalized assimilationist ideas; following his graduation he became the first Black person to earn a PhD from Harvard. After a number of years working as a professor, Du Bois became editor of the NAACP’s journal, The Crisis. This part of his career was characterized by an investment in education suasion, uplift suasion, and the idea that the Talented Tenth would elevate the conditions of Black people as a whole. He was involved with the Harlem Renaissance and developed an interest in Marxist thought. His most influential works are The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920), and Black Reconstruction in America (1935), the latter of which was his personal favorite of his books. Over time, Du Bois began to question assimilationist ideas and embrace socialism and Pan-Africanism. He came to reject his earlier thinking and admit that education and uplift suasion do not work. The U.S. deemed him a security threat when he was 82 and briefly revoked his passport. After it was reinstated, Du Bois traveled to Ghana, where he developed a friendship with Kwame Nkrumah. He died in Ghana at the age of 94.

W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes in Stamped from the Beginning

The Stamped from the Beginning quotes below are all either spoken by W. E. B. Du Bois or refer to W. E. B. Du Bois. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Discrimination, Racist Ideas, and Ignorance Theme Icon

Controlled by White philanthropists and instructors, Fisk was one of the nation’s preeminent factories of uplift suasion and assimilationist ideas. Du Bois consumed these ideas like his peers and started reproducing them when he became the editor of Fisk’s student newspaper, The Herald.

Related Characters: Ibram X. Kendi (speaker), W. E. B. Du Bois

Page Number and Citation: 267

Explanation and Analysis:

W. E. B. Du Bois Character Timeline in Stamped from the Beginning

The timeline below shows where the character W. E. B. Du Bois appears in Stamped from the Beginning. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...made Black people savage and brutal, which is a racist sentiment. The next figure is W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963), an influential Black scholar whose views shifted from assimilationist to anti-racist over the course... (full context)

W. E. B. Du Bois ’s description of Reconstruction and its aftermath is as follows: “The slave went free; stood... (full context)

The world within which Du Bois grows up is hostile to this mission. In 1883, the Supreme Court rules the 1875... (full context)

The teenage Du Bois ’s dream is to attend Harvard; local white people in his town raise money for... (full context)

...others. His book is also notable for its sexist portrayal of Black women. In 1888, Du Bois gives the graduation speech at Fisk, in which he describes the first chancellor of Germany,... (full context)

In 1890, Du Bois graduates from Harvard and gives another graduation speech in which he praises Jefferson Davis and... (full context)

...and other methods to prevent Black people voting. Ultimately, Lodge’s bill does not pass anyway. Du Bois is not particularly concerned by voter suppression, arguing, “When you have the right sort of... (full context)

...while blaming the increase in lynching on a supposedly growing rate of Black crime. Both Du Bois and the elderly Frederick Douglass accept this false excuse, but journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida... (full context)

Du Bois returns from Germany in 1894 after his request for funding extension is denied. In 1895,... (full context)

...in life in exchange for tolerance from white people in his famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech. Du Bois sends Washington a telegram expressing his admiration for the speech. In 1896, the Supreme Court... (full context)

Du Bois rejects the argument that Black people are going extinct but does not challenge the assertion... (full context)

...to put white people “at ease” (even if it means making racist jokes). In 1899, Du Bois is disturbed by the lynching of a Black man who killed his white employer in... (full context)

...autobiography, Up from Slavery, which emphasizes how “White saviors” were crucial to his success. In Du Bois ’s review of the lauded book, he defends antiracist thought against assimilationist accusations that opposing... (full context)

...Black communities across the nation celebrate this event, while segregationists furiously denounce it. In 1903, Du Bois publishes what will become his most famous work, The Souls of Black Folk. The book... (full context)

In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois critiques Booker T. Washington’s compromising tendencies while expressing the classist idea that poor Black people... (full context)

In 1906, the famous German-Jewish anthropologist Franz Boas arrives at Atlanta University, where Du Bois is hosting a conference entitled “The Health and Physique of the Negro-American.” Two days later,... (full context)

...of Black voters come to despise the Roosevelt administration. Meanwhile, scholars across the country (including Du Bois himself) continue to prop up the false idea that Black people’s criminality is partly to... (full context)

Du Bois , meanwhile, has become embroiled in a debate with William Lloyd Garrison’s grandson, Oswald Garrison... (full context)

Du Bois lambasts eugenics and other forms of “race prejudice” in The Crisis. Boas, meanwhile, champions the... (full context)

Du Bois dedicates an issue of The Crisis to the topic of women’s suffrage. In general, the... (full context)

...(who commits suicide in order to escape). Black people across the U.S. protest the film. Du Bois , meanwhile, publishes The Negro, a work of history that challenges racist myths. By this... (full context)

...people in the South are desperate to escape a place that, in the words of Du Bois , can feel “worse than hell.” This is the beginning of the Great Migration. Those... (full context)

In 1918, Du Bois travels to Paris and reports on the challenges and heroism of Black soldiers in Europe... (full context)

...an issue of The Crisis so controversial the U.S. Postal Service refuses to deliver it, Du Bois calls for an escalation of the fight for racial equality. This moment marks a turning... (full context)

...and they adopt a discriminatory attitude to Black workers. It is during this time that Du Bois himself devotes himself to reading Karl Marx and in 1920 publishes an essay collection entitled... (full context)

...of Black women that has thus far been published in print. At the same time, Du Bois ’s redeeming mission ends up creating a false stereotype of the Black “super-woman.” Overall, however,... (full context)

In 1921, Du Bois and Garvey engage in a major dispute over President Warren G. Harding’s condemnation of “racial... (full context)

...Act is passed in order to stem the flow of non-Nordic immigrants to the U.S. Du Bois himself dreams of a world in which people of all races and nationalities contribute to... (full context)

In March 1924, Du Bois attends an “artistic gathering” in New York with the Howard University professor Alaine Locke, who... (full context)

However, there are also a group of young Harlem Renaissance artists who reject Du Bois and his ideas. Calling themselves the “Niggerati,” this group includes Wallace Thurman and Zora Neale... (full context)

In 1926, Hughes infuriates Du Bois by endorsing “Nigger Heaven,” a book by a white patron of the Harlem Renaissance, Carl... (full context)

...the white public. Horrified by the representation of Black people in fiction of the time, Du Bois writes his own novel, Dark Princess: A Romance, which underlines assimilationist ideas in its effort... (full context)

...that accuses Black people of having literally tortured helpless white Southerners in the Reconstruction era, Du Bois begins writing what will become his personal favorite of his works: Black Reconstruction in America:... (full context)

...as the “Scottsboro Boys” are falsely convicted of gang raping two white women in Alabama. Du Bois , now 65 and almost entirely committed to antiracism, believes that this is exactly the... (full context)

...been a year of landmark progress against racism in the U.S. In this same year, Du Bois publishes an essay entitled “On Being Ashamed” in which he rejects his previous assimilationist thinking.... (full context)

After traveling through Germany, Japan, China, and Russia, Du Bois returns to the U.S. in 1937. White American intellectuals, disturbed by the specter of Nazism,... (full context)

...is E. Franklin Frazier’s The Negro Family in the United States, which draws on research Du Bois conducted years ago in order to pathologize Black families as “disorganized” and immoral. Frazier recommends... (full context)

...submissive and loyal. Once again, Black people protest the movie while white viewers adore it. Du Bois , meanwhile, is heartened after meeting a young writer named Richard Wright, who in 1945... (full context)

The Holocaust has a drastic impact on Du Bois and the world around him. Toward the end of World War II, Black Americans discuss... (full context)

As World War II draws to a close, Du Bois unsuccessfully fights for the new UN charter to oppose colonialism. In 1945, he attends the... (full context)

...the government aggressively pursues anyone they suspect of having communist ties. At 82 years old, Du Bois is arrested; although he is exonerated, the State Department revokes his passport. In 1951, William... (full context)

...which demonstrates how much better life has become for the elite minority of Black people Du Bois once called the Talented Tenth. When Dwight D. Eisenhower assumes the presidency in 1953, he... (full context)

...Education ruling. Despite the brutal opposition of white Southerners, “the civil rights movement ke[eps] coming.” Du Bois is surprised to see that the 27-year-old “figurehead” of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is a... (full context)

...enforce desegregation and protect the Black students nicknamed the “Little Rock Nine.” At age 90, Du Bois is hopeful about the possibility that the country is coming to embrace socialism and reject... (full context)

As the campaign of sit-ins at segregated Southern businesses continues, Du Bois grows disillusioned with the civil rights movement’s demands. He feels that only a radical program... (full context)

...before King delivers his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, Du Bois dies in his sleep. (full context)

...the self-interested actions of a small elite. Having been one of education persuasion’s biggest advocates, Du Bois came to abandon the tactic, having realized that the torrent of facts and information he... (full context)