William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

W.E.B Du Bois, also known as William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, was the son of a barber and itinerant laborer, Alfred and Mary Du Bois. During the Civil War, Alfred enlisted in the Union Army as a private but deserted shortly afterward. Shortly after W.E.B. Du Bois was born, Alfred deserted his family to travel to New York, causing Mary, William’s mother who was a domestic worker, to raise William with aid only from extended Burghardt family members. Later, they moved to Egremont, Massachusetts where William’s grandparents lived. Alfred and Mary divorced two years later. Soon after in 1873 when William was just five years old, William’s grandfather, passed away. After William’s parents’ divorce and his grandfather’s death, everything in the family fell apart. His grandmother had to sell their land to settle debts. They then moved to Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The Burghardt family were one of the oldest families in Berkshire County. William’s mother and her family took care of William in a small western town in Massachusetts where there was less than 100 African Americans. William spent the rest of his childhood in Berkshire County and never heard anything from his father after the divorce. Date and place of birth and death

During the early years, the association won a variety of legal cases to ensure the rights of minorities. In 1923, the NAACP won a case when the Supreme Court decided that African Americans could not be excluded from juries because excluding them denied those accused of crimes a fair trial. In 1945 during the establishment of the United Nations, William represented the association in San Francisco, California. Over many years, the NAACP has encouraged presidents to end racial discrimination in hiring and military service. The association has come a long way, from 60 people to a membership of more than 500,000 people