(1868 – 1963) Towering intellectual of the twentieth century remembered mostly for his opposition to Booker T. Washington’s polices of accommodation, and for his suggestion in Souls of Black Folk (1903) that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line” (1969:3). Generally overlooked in commemorations of Du Bois’ life are his contributions to the disciplines of sociology and history, his role as editor of the largest circulating newspaper among African Americans (The Crisis), his pivotal role in founding Pan-Africanism, his conversion to Marxism in the 1930s, the persecution he faced during the McCarthy years and his death while in exile in Ghana on the eve of the March on Washington.