Grandfather of Black studies

More than any other scholar, political activist or professor of his day, W.E.B. Du Bois established the intellectual and curricular groundwork for what would become the field of Black Studies in higher education in the United States. Beginning with his social study, The Philadelphia Negro, in 1898, Du Bois challenged the status quo regarding knowledge about the Black experience in the United States. With the Department of Labor and the Atlanta University reports he documented the facts of Black life. This book delineates the undaunted effort that Du Bois exerted in order to educate Black people about themselves and to rectify the misconceptions of Whites. The Great Depression, Du Bois believed, had exacerbated racial consciousness. He planned to remedy the situation of worsened race relations with a serious program of Black Studies. His plan was presented to the Annual Conference of the Presidents of Negro Land-Grant Colleges in 1941, but it would be more than twenty-five years before the first Black Studies program would appear in American higher education and it would not be at a Black institution.