February is coming to a close and so soon too. Well, that is to be to expected as it is the shortest month of the year. It was the month of love and treating our loved ones well mostly by fattening their middles. As well as a month of remembrance about the past: our American history and Presidents. Our black history that helped shaped that history and their writings.
So begins my close out of Black History month with another ‘on this day’ event. Did you know, that on this day in 1868, W.E.B DuBois was born? William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born in Great Barrington Massachusetts, a mostly European American town. Where he freely went to a white school and his education was encouraged by its teachers. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Fisk University and completed his master’s degree at Harvard University. Making him the first African-American to earn a Ph.D from Harvard in 1895. Afterwards he studied abroad at the University of Berlin.
In 1899, he published The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. The first case study of the African-American Community. In 1903, he published a collection of essays called The Souls of Black Folks. As a scholar, activist and writer, W.E.B. DuBois strived for equal civil rights for all people and the rights for women. He later co-founded the NAACP in 1909 to confront those civil rights issues.
You can find his case study, The Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of Black Folks on Goodreads.
PS. I’ve gotten a few responses to my 30 Days of Poetry Love #npm15 project but I need more. If you’re interested in participating or know someone who might be, tell them about it. Better yet share on FB, Google+ and tweet about it, etc. And remember to use the hashtag #npm15.