Reformers

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts 1868 he was an academic, scholar, activist and journalist. His parents were originally from Haiti. After the death of his father, young DuBois had to struggle to study but his teachers were amazed at the academic capability of DuBois. He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D from Harvard University. He also attended University of Berlin and met many social scientists of that time and he traveled frequently to Europe. Some of his works that made him famous are The Philadelphia Negro, The souls of Black Folk, Black Reconstruction, Black Folk, Then an Now and The Negro. DuBois books talk extensively about the lives of black people not only in the US but also the around the African Continent. He was also the most intellectual political African American Leader in the first half of the twentieth century. He was concerned about the segregation and the political disenfranchisement and he was known as “The Father of Pan-Africanism.” In his later life DuBois was thought to be communist because he talked about the positive things of Stalin. DuBois died in Ghana at the age of 95 in August 27, 1963 one day before Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream speech.” http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html

James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938)

He was an author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, early civil right activist, and a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He attended the Atlanta University and got his B.A. from there. It was in Georgia where he experienced the life of poor African-Americans. After graduating from University he became the principle of Jacksonville school where his mother had taught too. He added ninth and tenth grade in the school to improve the education. He was a very popular poet and a songwriter. Some of his famous works are- God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse which marked him as a significant creative endeavor, The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925), and The Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926). He also became the General Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1920. He was very active in the advancement of the African Americans in all social and academic fields. Johnson died on 26 June 1938, in Wiscasset Maine, when his car was struck b a train. http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/amlit/johnson/johnson1.html

Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954)

Born in Pennsylvania he was an American writer, philosopher, educator and patron of arts. He graduated from the Central High School in Philadelphia and went to Harvard University. From Harvard he graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy. Locke started his teaching career from Howard University and he remained as an educator for 41 years. Locke was a key figure of the New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance. He was involved in the promotion of Black art and culture and had three main philosophical issues: values and valuation, cultural pluralism, and race relations. He was one of the founders of the Gamma Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Howard University. Locke promoted African American artists, writers, and musicians, encouraging them to look to Africa as an inspiration for their works. Some of his publications were The New Negro, The Negro in Art and When People Meet: A Study in Race and Cultural Contacts. Locke died in New York at the age of 68.
http://www.founders.howard.edu/Locke.htm

Asa Philip Randolph

Randolph was born in April 15, 1889 in Crescent City, Florida, son of a minster father and skilled seamstress mother. From his mother he learned the importance of education and from his father he learned that the color was less important than one’s conduct and character. Randolph was influenced by DuBois “The Souls of Black “which led him in thinking that social equality was important that anything else. Randolph with the some labor organization experience organized The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters which was the first serious effort of unionizing the Pullman Company. He also emerged as one of the influential spoke person for the African-American civil rights. Randolph founded a committee against Jim Crow in military service and training. He met with President Truman regarding the issue of segregation in the military. Finally in July 26, 1948, President Truman issued an order to ban Jim Crow in the army. Randolph was also a key person in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, this March is regarded as the key factor for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Randolph died in 1979 and many great people along with President Jimmy Carter were present at his funeral. http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/schools/randolph/A_P_Randolph.html