W.E.B. DuBois

William Edward Burghardt DuBois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an African American civil rights activist, sociologist, historian, writer, editor, poet, freemason, and scholar. Although born in the United States, he became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963.

Pronunciation of name

Du Bois is a French name meaning "of the wood" and pronounced {{Unicode|/doobwa/}} (using the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet). However, this name is usually anglicized in the United States to {{Unicode|/d(j)u:'bɔɪz/}}.

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In a letter to the Chicago Sunday Evening Club dated Jan. 20, 1939 (cited in David Levering Lewis W.E.B. DuBois, Biography of a Race, p. 11), Du Bois wrote that "The pronunciation of my name is Due Boyss, with the accent on the last syllable.", which would imply {{Unicode|/dju:'bɔɪs/}}, though he might have intended {{Unicode|/du:'bɔɪs/}}.

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DuBois was apparently the grandson of a Loyalist New York doctor who fled to the West Indies, and consequently has been deemed to be a descendant of the accomplished DuBois family that founded New Paltz, New York, one of the first French Huguenot colonies in the Americas.

Related Topics:
Loyalist - New Paltz, New York - Huguenot

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Though he acknowledged his name as French (and distinctly not English, as he was a well known Anglophobe), he clearly identified with his African roots, and indeed, is considered the father of African-American culture.

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