The Comet: From their pens to your ears, genius in every story

He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. As a sociologist his writing, including the classic 1903 work ‘The Souls of Black Folk’, introduced the concept of "double consciousness"—the sense of 'twoness' felt by Black Americans—and his famous statement, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."

Du Bois was a seminal figure in the long fight for the full and immediate introduction of Civil Rights. He was the only Black co-founder of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and served as the editor of its influential magazine, ‘The Crisis’, which was not only a widely applauded platform for protest against segregation but a valuable literary space for black authors to gain an audience for their stories.

As well as writing widely and prolifically in non-fiction he also wrote novels and short story fiction, many of which were surprising in their choice of genre, including science fiction.

Although he embraced socialism and later Communism he became further disillusioned with the slow progress of the US Government to act on its promises and renounced his American citizenship and moved to Ghana in 1961.

W E B du Bois deid in Accra, Ghana on the 27th August 1963, one day before the March on Washington. He was 95.