During high school, Du Bois began to form his own beliefs as to how this country should function. His visits to Town Hall spurred his thoughts about democracy:
“From early years, I attended the town meeting every Spring and listened to the citizens discuss things about which I knew and had opinions…. I began to see that this was the essence of democracy: listening to the other man’s opinion and then voting your own, honestly and intelligently.”
W.E.B. Du Bois, Autobiography, 1968
After graduating from high school, the First Congregational Church collected enough funding for Du Bois to attend Fisk University in Tennessee. He then moved on to study at Harvard. After earning a bachelor’s degree from both Fisk and Harvard, Du Bois studied in Berlin, then returned to Harvard to complete a Ph.D. Even in these years he could grasp grand ideas and speak on them, his commencement speech at Great Barrington High School was on the abolitionist Wendell Phillips; his address at Fisk University focused on the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Both show how men can advance ideas far larger than themselves and motivate a people to strive to meet those ideas. Du Bois would motivate future generations in his own right through his books and founding of civil rights organizations such as the NAACP.
“From early years, I attended the town meeting every Spring and listened to the citizens discuss things about which I knew and had opinions…. I began to see that this was the essence of democracy: listening to the other man’s opinion and then voting your own, honestly and intelligently.”
W.E.B. Du Bois, Autobiography, 1968
After graduating from high school, the First Congregational Church collected enough funding for Du Bois to attend Fisk University in Tennessee. He then moved on to study at Harvard. After earning a bachelor’s degree from both Fisk and Harvard, Du Bois studied in Berlin, then returned to Harvard to complete a Ph.D. Even in these years he could grasp grand ideas and speak on them, his commencement speech at Great Barrington High School was on the abolitionist Wendell Phillips; his address at Fisk University focused on the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Both show how men can advance ideas far larger than themselves and motivate a people to strive to meet those ideas. Du Bois would motivate future generations in his own right through his books and founding of civil rights organizations such as the NAACP.