W.E.B Du Bois W.E.B. Dubois Term Paper

It was in 1919, when Dubois represented the NAACP at the Paris Peace Conference that he decided on organizing a Pan-African conference, aimed at bringing Africa and Africa's problems to the knowledge of the entire world. Although the conference eventually was not organized, mainly because Dubois failed to coagulate sufficient participants and other African- American organizations, it reflected Dubois Pan-Africanism and the idea of double conscious.

Indeed, Dubois promoted and sustained the idea that, in order for Blacks to be free anywhere, they should be free everywhere. At that point, after the end of the First World War, there were only two free countries in Africa: Liberia and Ethiopia, the rest being European colonies. Dubois wanted to tie the Negro emancipation and civil rights campaigns in the United States with a more global idea of universal civil rights and Black emancipation on the African continent as well.

The conference was eventually organized in 1921, Dubois's intellectual approach was not successful in generating enough momentum to create any real change or action for the future. However, at the end of the conference, Dubois traveled to Africa for the first time and this was an opportunity to better understand Black roots and philosophy. He would continue to participate throughout his life to Pan-African conferences and he would meet with many of the intellectuals and revolutionaries who would obtain independence for the countries in Africa after 1945. It was also that Dubois would continue to protest against imperialism in Africa throughout his life and advocate for African independence.

Dubois has remained in history as a great civil rights leader and his approach is quite different from the activist, revolutionary actions of Martin Luther King. However, it is just as grandiose, with Dubois using his extraordinary intellectual grasp to bring information and knowledge to the movement. He also extended the approach to include African, as the continent of origin for the Negro population in the United States and as a source of information.

His extended vision placed the civil rights movement in the U.S. In a much larger context, a framework that would include global emancipation for the Negro population and African independence. He had a vast array of approaches to the issue of racism and rights for the Black population, acknowledged as the most preeminent political and intellectual activist in the U.S. In the first half of the twentieth century. The organizations he was part of, their actions and participation to different conference on the thematic of human rights and fight against racism, as well as his numerous writings are well proof of this. He was most likely a forefather of activism and activist movement for Black rights in the 1960s and would remain an inspiration for the generations to come.

Bibliography

1. Hynes, Gerald. A Biographical Sketch of W.E.B. DuBois. On the Internet at http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html.Last retrieved on December 16, 2007 http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/dubois.html.Last retrieved on December 16, 2007 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/dubois.html.

Last retrieved on December 16, 2007

Hynes, Gerald. A Biographical Sketch of W.E.B. DuBois. On the Internet at http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html.Last retrieved on December 16, 2007