Shirley graham du bois biography of barack
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About Shirley Graham Du Bois
In 1926, Graham moved to Paris, France, to study music composition at the Sorbonne where she met Africans and Afro-Caribbean people and introduced her to new music and cultures.
In 1931, Graham entered Oberlin College as an advanced student and, after earning her B.A. in 1934, went on to do graduate work in music, completing a master's degree in 1935. In 1936 she was appointed director of the Chicago Negro Unit of the Federal Theater Project, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. She wrote musical scores, directed, and did additional associated work.
In the late 1940s, Graham became a member of Sojourners for Truth and Justice – an African-American organization working for global women's liberation.[1] Around the same time, she joined the American Communist Party
In 1951, she married W. E. B. Du Bois, the second marriage for both. She was 54 years old; he was 83. They later emigrated to Ghana, where they recei
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Shirley Graham Du Bois
SchlesingerLibrary/Collections
Shirley Graham Du Bois was an American award-winning author, playwright, composer, and activist for African American and other causes. In later life, she married the noted thinker, writer, and activist W.E.B. Du Bois.
Du Bois was born on November 11, in approximately 1896, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was the only daughter among six children. Her father, Reverend David A. Graham, was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church where her mother, Elizabeth Etta (Bell) Graham, was also active. The family moved often and it was difficult for Du Bois to keep up in school, but she graduated from Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington, in 1915. She entered Oberlin College in 1931 to study music, receiving her AB degree in 1934 and a master's in music the following year. She also completed most of her doctorate in English and education at New York University.
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Before Shirley Graham married W.E.B. ni Bois in 1951, she had earned a national reputation as a playwright, composer, conductor, director, and author. Born to an A.M.E. minister and a europeisk mother, Graham was raised to appreciate Black culture and music. From a young age, her parents instilled in her the importance of social justice and the uplift of the Black Community. Throughout her life, she continued to advocate for the Black community. For her lifelong dedication, we honor her as an ancestor.
Graham’s first career was as a composer and playwright. After brief stints at the Sorbonne in 1926, Howard University, and Morgan State University, she completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music history at Oberlin College in 1934 and 1935. By this time, she had already become the first Black woman to write and produce an all-black opera, Tom-Toms: An Epic of Music and the Negro (1932). It represented her desire to preserve Black music, particularly spirituals, which she was