W.E.B. Du Bois believed that the Negro people had a unique contribution to make to civilization and humanity, and he saw true democracy and self-determination as the means by which all peoples could contribute their gifts to a better world. Widely traveled in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he came to view the race problem in America, the peoples of Asia and Africa, and the political development of Europe as one connected struggle. He especially loved people of African descent, whose gifts he believed had been suppressed by enslavement and five hundred years of economic exploitation. He worked to liberate Africans from European colonialism, mentored many leaders of post-colonial Africa, and at the time of his death in 1963 was living in Ghana, where President Kwame Nkrumah had invited him to create the Encyclopedia Africana. His grave is on the grounds of the W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture in Accra, Ghana, where he lived and worked.

Photo: Cosmos Mariner

Photo: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Mass. Amherst

Photo: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Mass. Amherst

Photo: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Mass. Amherst

Photo: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Mass. Amherst

Photo: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Mass. Amherst

Photo: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Mass. Amherst

Photo: Cosmos Mariner