NOMINEE: W.E.B. Du Bois
NOMINATED BY: Henry Louis Gates Jr., Chair of
Afro-American Studies, Harvard University
The great African-American intellectual is the Person of the Century for me. Du Bois was the first black Ph.D. from Harvard; he was one of the founding fathers of the field of sociology. He helped establish the N.A.A.C.P. and edited its journal, The Crisis, for 24 years. He was an architect of the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement, and throughout his life brilliantly fought against racial discrimination and for the full participation of blacks in American society. He conceived of the Encyclopedia Africana, a comprehensive history of the African diaspora. He was a staunch opponent (with Bertrand Russell) of the use of nuclear weapons. He published dozens of books and thousands of pivotal essays. Who could possibly have done more than he to redefine American democracy over 60 years of the 20th century? -- Henry Louis Gates Jr.
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