This collection of photographs from the W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan African Culture in Accra, Ghana, was compiled in partnership with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library’s Africana, Asian American, Chicano & Native American Studies Center. The images are part of a repository of photographs at the Centre that were part of Du Bois’s private picture collection prior to his death in 1963, and collected by his wife Shirley after his death. The Centre, a national memorial place, public research facility and tourist attraction, was established in 1985.
These images, scanned from original and duplicate photographs, include a photo galley of Du Bois as a child, his parents, high school, first wife Nina and daughter, Niagara Movement, NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, Paris Exhibition, scrapbooks from Russia and China, with President Kwame Nkrumah, Lenin Peace Prize, with Paul Robeson, Shirley Du Bois and Malcolm X, Maya Angelou, his diaries, notes and more.
During the summer of 2016, Dr. Cheers and his daughter Imani, an assistant professor at George Washington University, were granted permission by the Du Bois Centre to scan the photographs and documents collection.