History of the Pan-African Congress, George Padmore (editor) 1947

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.
“Father of Pan-Africanism.”

“There is slowly arising not only a curiously strong brotherhood of Negro blood throughout the world, but the common cause of the darker races against the intolerable assumption and insults of Europeans has already found expression. Most men in this world are coloured. A belief in humanity means a. belief in coloured men. The future world will, in all reasonable possibility, be what coloured men make it."
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois in The Negro, 1915.

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on February 23rd, 1868. He was graduated B.A., Fisk University, 1888; B.A., 1890, M.A., 1891, and Ph.D., 1895, Harvard University. He also studied at the University of Berlin. From 1896 to 1910 Dr. Du Bois was Professor of Economics and History at Atlanta University, where he edited the Atlanta University Studies, 1897-1911. He was Director of Publicity of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, which developed out of the Niagara Movement, of which he was one of the founders in 1905, and Editor-in-Chief of the Crisis, the official organ of the Association, from 1910 to 1932. He returned to Atlanta University and served as Professor of Sociology during 1932-44. Dr. Du Bois, who was Spingarn Medallist in 1920, is the “Father” of Pan-Africanism.

In 1924, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Liberia on the occasion of the inauguration of the President, in addition to contributions to the leading magazines. Dr. Du Bois has written Suppression of the African Slave Trade (1896); The Philadelphia Negro (1899); The Souls of Black Folk (1903); John Brown (1909); Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911); The Negro (1915); Darkwater (1920); The Gift of Black Folk (1924); Dark Princess (1927); Black Reconstruction (1935); Black Folk Then and Now (1940); Dusk of Dawn (1941); Colour and Democracy (1945); The World and Africa (1946) He was, 1940-44, editor of Phylon, The Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture, which he founded.