W.E.B. Du Bois Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Edward Burghardt

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868. Burghardt was his mother's family name. She was part of the free black population of Great Barrington, and her family had long owned land in Massachusetts.

Answer: Harvard

In 1890, Du Bois graduated from Harvard cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history. In 1895, he received his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard. He initially received a bachelor's from a historically black college, Fisk University.

Answer: False

The Dunning School of scholars at Columbia University had traditionally argued that Reconstruction was a failure and had attributed that failure to the presumed laziness and incompetence of African-Americans. Du Bois countered that view in his essays, one of which he shared at the 1909 annual conference of the American Historical Association, where he was the first African-American ever invited to present a paper.

He emphasized the positive role of African-American leadership in Reconstruction and the advancement in democracy, schooling, and social welfare legislation that occurred.

Answer: Native Son

"Native Son" was a 1940 novel by Richard Wright.

"Dusk of Dawn" was Du Bois's second autobiography, published in 1940, and subtitled "An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept."

Du Bois's "Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880," published in 1935, highlighted the positive role of African-Americans during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Du Bois is perhaps best known, however, for "The Souls of Black Folks," a 1903 collection of essays on race issues.

Answer: Frederick Douglass

In 1881, Frederick Douglass wrote an article, "The Color Line" for the "North American Review" in 1881. Du Bois took up the term and used it repeatedly in his 1903 book "The Souls of Black Folk." Frederick Douglass had escaped from slavery in Maryland and went on to become a national leader of the abolitionist movement. He died in 1891.

Answer: Wilberforce University

Du Bois received a job offer from the Tuskegee Institute, but instead he accepted an offer from Wilberforce University in Ohio. There he met his future wife, Nina Gomer, who was one of his students. They wed in 1896. He later went on to a research job at the University of Pennsylvania before becoming a professor at Atlanta University, a historically black college, where he taught history and economics.

William Wilberforce was a British politician who led the movement to abolish the slave trade.

Answer: Paris

Held in Paris, France from April to November of 1900, the Exposition Universelle was a world's fair celebrating the achievements of the previous century. Du Bois organized an exhibit containing over 360 photographs commemorating the lives of African-Americans and challenging racist stereotypes.

He organized the images into albums, including "Types of American Negroes" and "Negro Life in Georgia, U.S.A." The images are now housed at The Library of Congress.

Answer: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Du Bois attended the second National Negro Conference in 1910, during which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was created. It was Du Bois who suggested the use of "colored" to encompass more minorities. He was given the position of Director of Publicity and Research, in which capacity he served as editor of "The Crisis," the NAACP's monthly magazine.

Answer: John Brown

John Brown was an advocate of using armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery. In October of 1859, he led a raid on Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia. His plan was to kick off a slave liberation movement by arming slaves, but most of the local slaves did not join his revolt. Brown was captured, tried for treason and murder, and hanged.

Answer: False

Rather, he became disillusioned with the Harlem Renaissance, which he had once referred to as "A Negro Art Renaissance." He thought that white people were coming to Harlem like curious voyeurs, with little genuine interest in the movement, and that many of the writers, musicians, and other artists were forgetting they were first and foremost black artists.

In his 1933 book "W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race 1868-1919," David Levering Lewis quotes du Bois as saying, "I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda."

Answer: He supported Woodrow Wilson for President

Du Bois supported the Democrat nominee Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential campaign. This was a violation of Socialist party rules, and so he was forced to resign. Wilson, however, turned out to be no friend to racial integration, and Du Bois was disillusioned. So he supported Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican nominee, in the 1916 election and the Republican Warren G. Harding during the 1920 presidential election.

Du Bois visited the Soviet Union and tended to favor socialist principles, but he also endorsed Democrats, Republicans, and Progressives when it seemed pragmatic to do so.

Answer: The Aryan Nations

The debate was put together by the Chicago Forum Council. Stoddard was a eugenicist and a proponent of "scientific racism." He wrote "The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy" and advocated in support of anti-miscegenation laws. He was a member of the KKK, the American Eugenics Society, and the American Birth Control League, which was founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger and would eventually evolve into Planned Parenthood.

The Aryan Nations was not formed until the 1970s.

Answer: False

Du Bois was a lifelong anti-war activist. He opposed U.S. involvement in World War II in particular because he thought waring against Japan was a way for whites to reassert their influence in Asia. He also didn't like the restrictions on African-Americans in the U.S. armed forces. In later life, he became chair of the Peace Information Center.

Answer: True

On his 1936 world trip, Du Bois visited Japan, China, and Nazi Germany. In an interview, he compared and contrasted the situation of the Jews in Germany with that of African-Americans in the U.S.

"What is happening in Germany," he told the interviewer, "is happening in a lawful way and openly, even if it is cruel and unjust; but in the United States, the Negro is persecuted and repressed secretly and in flagrant violation of the laws. Nevertheless, both races evince the same reaction to this treatment: they are at pains to remain as inconspicuous as possible." (Source: "Man of color tours Nazi-Germany: Prof. Du Bois on the Jews in the Reich," February 1937. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers.)

Answer: Albert Einstein

The U.S. Justice Department accused the PIC of acting as an agent of a foreign state and required the organization to register with the federal government. When PIC's leaders refused, they were indicted. The case, however, was dismissed before the jury returned a verdict.

In "Albert Einstein, Civil Rights Activist," Ken Gewertz writes, "Einstein offered to appear as a character witness for Du Bois, which convinced the judge to drop the case." Du Bois knew Einstein because in 1930, he had contacted him for a contribution to "The Crisis." This kicked off a continued correspondence on race and racism.

The NAACP, however, did not support Du Bois during his trial.

Answer: Countee Cullen

W.E.B. Du Bois and his wife had two children, a son who died in infancy and a daughter they named Yolande. Yolande Du Bois became a high school teacher after graduating from Frisk University. She married the poet Countee Cullen in 1928. However, they divorced within two years.

As early as her honeymoon, Yolande wrote W.E.B. Du Bois to tell him she was unsure about her marriage. She filed for divorce when Cullen confessed to her that he was attracted to men.

Answer: Agnostic

Du Bois was a self-described agnostic or freethinker, though in childhood he had been raised in a New England Congregational church. In adulthood, he did not join any church and declined to lead public prayers.

Answer: The Episcopal Church

The Episcopal church has both saints' days and commemorations. Its commemorations include poets, writers, and musicians, many, but not all, of whom were Episcopalian. Though Du Bois was an agnostic in adulthood, his grandfather, Alexander Du Bois, belonged to New Haven's Trinity Episcopal Church.

When white church leaders decided to segregate black members in a single set of pews, Alexander Du Bois gathered funds and helped open St. Luke's Episcopal Church, one of the oldest black Episcopal churches in America.

Answer: Plays

Du Bois wrote three autobiographies (including "Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil"), five historical novels (including "Dark Princess: A Romance"), and several non-fiction books, as well as speeches, essays, and dissertations. He was also the editor of "The Crisis" from 1910 to 1933, which published many of his own articles and opinion pieces.

Answer: Ghana

In 1961, the president of Ghana invited Du Bois to come to Ghana and help make an encyclopedia of the African diaspora. Du Bois was 93 when he began work on the project, and, annoyed that the U.S. refused to renew his passport (the same passport the federal government confiscated and held onto for years when he was tried), he became a citizen of Ghana.

He died there, two years later in 1963, and was given a state funeral. He did not live quite long enough to see the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enacted.