Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt Du Bois) dəbois´ [key], 1868–1963, American civil-rights leader and author, b. Great Barrington, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1890 M.A., 1891 Ph.D., 1895). Du Bois was an early exponent of full equality for African Americans and a cofounder (1905) of the