Born
in 1868,
Du Bois lived
through 95 years of tumultuous Civil Rights struggles. He was
one
of the founding members of the NAACP and the first editor of its
influential publication, The Crisis. Du
Bois was a fiery, independent person and
never bowed to
conventional wisdom at the expense of what he thought was right. He
wanted political and economic equality for all people, black and white.
Eventually he came to believe that this could be accomplished
only through voluntary segregation. This belief did not sit
well
with most other black leaders. Near the end of his long life
he
became a Communist and gave up his American citizenship to become a
citizen of Ghana.
Award Winner
