The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories

W.E.B. Du Bois papers

Repository: University of Massachusetts Amherst. Special Collections & University Archives

Collection Description (CRHP): Series 16 contains a typed transcription of an unpublished oral history interview with Du Bois by William Ingersoll in 1960.

Collection Description (Extant): Scholar, writer, editor of The Crisis and other journals, co-founder of the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the Pan African Congresses, international spokesperson for peace and for the rights of oppressed minorities, W.E.B. Du Bois was a son of Massachusetts who articulated the strivings of African Americans and developed a trenchant analysis of the problem of the color line in the twentieth century.

Includes over 100,000 items of correspondence (more than three quarters of the papers), speeches, articles, newspaper columns, nonfiction books, research materials, book reviews, pamphlets and leaflets, petitions, novels, essays, forewords, student papers, manuscripts of pageants, plays, short stories and fables, poetry, photographs, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, videotapes, audiotapes, and miscellaneous materials. A copy of the full published guide, which also includes a detailed listing of materials that were microfilmed is available online at: http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/ead/mums312_full.pdf.

Access Copy Note: There are no restrictions on access to the contents of the collection. Since many of the items are fragile, however, researchers are requested to use the microfilm whenever possible.

The collection is open for research.

Du Bois's oral history is not included on the microfilm but is widely available through the Smithsonian Folkways project.

Date(s): 1803-1999 (Bulk: 1877-1963)

Digital Status: Partial

Existing IDs: Collection number: MS 312

Extent: 382 boxes (168.75 linear ft.)

Finding Aid URL: http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/ead/mums312.html

Language: English

Related Archival Items: The Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail includes information on Du Bois's homesite; see the separate database record on this repository and its civil rights collection.

Interviewees: W.E.B. Du Bois

Rights (CRHP): Contact the repository which holds the collection for information on rights

Subjects:

African American journalists
African Americans--Civil rights
Collective memory
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Genres:

Interviews
Lectures
Manuscripts
Photographs
Sound recordings
Speeches
Transcripts
Videorecordings