WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS (1868-1963) was one of the greatest African American intellectuals — a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation's history from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, he penned his epochal masterpiece, “The Souls of Black Folk”, in 1903. It remains his most studied and popular work; its insights into black life at the turn of the twentieth century still ring true.