Lecture: Phillip Luke Sinitiere, "David Graham Du Bois: Bearing Witness to Black History," Part 1
Lecture: Phillip Luke Sinitiere, "David Graham Du Bois: Bearing Witness to Black History," Part 1 In-Person
Livestream Link 10/13, Part 1
Livestream Link 10/15, Part 2
David Graham Du Bois (1925-2005) was a journalist, professor, writer, novelist, and activist. His mother was the African American playwright, composer, and author Shirley Graham Du Bois. He was also the adopted stepson of Black intellectual and activist W.E.B. Du Bois. In the 1960s, David Graham Du Bois wrote for Cairo-based newspapers like the Egyptian Gazette and The Arab Review while his voice traveled the airwaves as an announcer on Radio Cairo. After living abroad in Egypt for a dozen years, he returned to the United States in 1972. Thereafter, David taught criminology and journalism at schools such as UC Berkeley and UMass Amherst during the 1970s and 1980s. He served as the Black Panther Party’s spokesperson and edited its newspaper in the mid-1970s.
David Graham Du Bois’s work as an activist, particularly in the 1990s, championed the intellectual and political legacies of his mother and stepfather both in the US and Ghana. Drawing on research from over 50 archival collections, this lecture series presents a lively and enriching biographical overview of David Graham Du Bois’s global life in Black history.
Speaker Bio
Phillip Luke Sinitiere is Senior Research Fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst. He is also professor of US history, world history, and humanities at the College of Biblical Studies, a predominately African American school located in Houston’s Mahatma Gandhi District. In addition to dozens of essays in academic journals that analyze W.E.B. Du Bois’s life and legacy, Sinitiere’s Du Bois-related scholarly books include Citizen of the World: The Late Career and Legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois (Northwestern University Press, 2019); Forging Freedom in W. E. B. Du Bois’s Twilight Years: No Deed but Memory (University Press of Mississippi, 2023); and Shirley Graham Du Bois: Artist, Activist, and Author in the African Diaspora (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025).
Location: W. E. B. Du Bois Library, Floor 22, Room 2267, East Asian Reference Collection Room
- Date:
- Tuesday, October 13, 2026
- Time:
- 4:00pm - 5:00pm
- Time Zone:
- Eastern Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- W. E. B. Du Bois Library, East Asian Reference Collection Room (Floor 22, Room 2267)
- Audience:
- Alumni Faculty General Public Graduate Students Library Donors Staff Undergraduates
- Categories:
- Lectures W. E. B. Du Bois Center
