William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Du Bois displayed his intellectual gifts even at and early age. He graduated from high school at the age of 16, the valedictorian an only black in his graduating class of 12. He became an orphan shortly after his graduation and was forced to fund his own college education. He won a scholarship to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he excelled and saw for th first time the plight of Southern blacks.
Du Bois had grown up with more privileges and advantages than most blacks living in the United States at that time, and, unlike most blacks living in the South, he had suffered neither severe economic hardship nor had he been the victim of harsh racism. As violence against blacks increased in the South throughout the 1880s, Du Bois learned many hard lessons about race relations. He followed reports about the increasing frequency of lynchings, calling each racially motivated killing "a scar" upon his soul. Through these and other encounters with racial hatred, as well as through his experience teaching in poor black communities in Tennessee during the summers, Du Bois began to develop his racial consciousness and the desire to help improve conditions for all blacks.
Du Bois received his bachelor's degree from Fisk in 1888, and won a scholarship to attend Harvard University. Harvard considered his high school education and his degree from Fisk inadequate preparation for a master's program, so he had to register as an undergraduate. Du Bois received his second bachelor's degree in 1890 and then enrolled in Harvard. He earned his master's degree and then his doctoral degree in 1895, becoming the first black to receive a degree from Harvard. .
After graduating from Harvard Du Bois had begun his research into the historical and sociological conditions of black Americans that would make him the most influential black of his time.
