Kristin Marsh, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Professor of Sociology Kristin Marsh penned an editorial on authors and Black rights activists Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B. DuBois in The Free Lance-Star in advance of her “Great Lives” lecture on Feb. 23. View the lecture here.
AT THE TURN of the 20th century, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) was one of the most renowned social justice intellectuals in the U.S. He helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), edited its popular journal, The Crisis, and established the first School of Sociology at Atlanta University.
Toward an empirically grounded critical race theory, the DuBoisian school examined the extensive institutional and interpersonal racism facing African Americans. Du Bois was a staunch supporter of liberal education for blacks at a time when whites favored the vocational education advocated by Booker T. Washington.
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (1858–1964) was as fully engaged in public debates surrounding racial uplift as was Du Bois. An educator herself, Cooper led the M Street High School for blacks in Washington, D.C., where she insisted on providing students with the best college preparatory curriculum available. Read more.