W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois was a sociologist, historian, and philosopher who became the most important Black intellectual in American history. The Souls of Black Folk introduced the concept of double consciousness—the sense of "twoness" experienced by African Americans living within a society that denies their full humanity—a concept that remains central to African American thought and the philosophy of race.

Du Bois co-founded the NAACP and spent over sixty years fighting for racial equality through scholarship, journalism, and political activism. His vast output ranged from painstaking sociological studies to philosophical essays, historical works, and novels. He eventually joined the Communist Party and emigrated to Ghana, dying the day before the March on Washington in 1963—a figure whose full importance only grew with time.