Shirley Graham Du Bois
Shirley Graham Du Bois (born Lola Shirley Graham Jr.; November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American-Ghanaian writer, playwright, composer, and activist for
Biography
She was born Lola Shirley Graham Jr. in
She married her first husband, Shadrach T. McCants, in 1921. Their son Robert was born in 1923, followed by David Graham DuBois
Graham served as music librarian while attending Howard University as a nonmatriculated student under the tutelage of Professor Roy W. Tibbs. He recommended her for a teaching position at Morgan College which led to her position as head of the music department from 1929 to 1931.[4]
In 1931, Graham entered
In 1932 she composed the opera Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro which premiered in
Graham briefly worked at the
In the late 1940s, Graham became a member of Sojourners for Truth and Justice – an African-American organization working for global women's liberation.[2] Around the same time, she joined the American Communist Party.[2]
In 1951, she married W. E. B. Du Bois, the second marriage for both. She was 54 years old; he was 83. In 1958, Graham Du Bois and her husband visited Ghana, where she spoke at the All-African Peoples' Conference (AAPC), an event held by 62 African National Liberation organizations where she delivered a speech titled "The Future of All-Africa lies in Socialism" where she stated "Africa, ancient Africa, has been called by the world and has lifted up her hands! Africa has no choice between private capitalism and socialism. The whole world, including capitalist countries, is moving toward socialism, inevitably, inexorably. You can choose between blocs of military alliance, you can choose between groups of political union; you cannot choose between socialism and private capitalism because private capitalism is doomed." In 1960 the Du Boises attended a ceremony in the Republic of Ghana honoring Kwame Nkrumah as the first president of the newly liberated country. Graham Du Bois and W. E. B. Du Bois later became citizens of Ghana in 1961.
Graham Du Bois attended the Second Summit of the
During her first visit to China in 1959, Graham Du Bois, alongside her husband W. E. B. Du Bois, was commemorated in China for their activism and commitment to Black liberation, as well as to liberation of all people of color across the globe. The Chinese Communist Party in 1959 commemorated W. E. B. Du Bois by publishing his book The Soul of Black Folk in Chinese languages. Graham Du Bois devoted her time in China to the women's struggle and sought to bridge ties between the proletarian struggle in China with the struggle of Black Americans. The People's Daily recognized her as a member of the World Peace Council and of the national committee for the Association of American-Soviet Friendship.[citation needed]
In 1967, she was forced to leave Ghana soon after the 1966 military-led coup d'état, and moved to
She gave talks at Yale and UCLA in 1970, where she was able to speak on imperialism, capitalism and colonialism and her experiences in countries undergoing socialist construction, such as China and Vietnam. She also gave W. E. B. Du Bois' writings to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.[citation needed]
She produced a movie in China called Women of the New China in 1974. Shirley Graham Du Bois died in Beijing, China in 1977, where she is buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. Her funeral was attended by many important political figures in China, including Cheng Yonggui, Deng Yingchao, and Huo Guofeng, where they honored her as a hero for her internationalism and selflessness. The Communist Party Chairman lay a memorial wreath in honor of Graham Du Bois, as did the embassies of Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia.[citation needed]
Death
Shirley Graham Du Bois died of
Honors
Her alma mater
Her papers are archived at;
- W.E.B. Du Bois Manuscript Collection at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts
- Federal Theatre Project collection at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia
- Washington Conservatory of Music Collection in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Library at Howard University in Washington, D.C.[10]
- Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Cambridge, MA
Works
After meeting Africans in Paris while studying at the Sorbonne in 1926, Graham composed the musical score and libretto of Tom Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro (1932), an opera. She used music, dance and the book to express the story of Africans' journey to the North American colonies, through slavery and to freedom.
According to the Oxford Companion to African-American Literature, her theatre works included Deep Rivers (1939), a musical; It's Morning (1940), a one-act tragedy about a slave mother who contemplates infanticide; I Gotta Home (1940), a one-act drama; Track Thirteen (1940), a comedy for radio and her only published play; Elijah's Raven (1941), a three-act comedy; and Dust to Earth (1941), a three-act tragedy.[5]
Graham used theater to tell the black woman's story and perspective, countering white versions of history. Despite her unsuccessful attempts to land a Broadway production as many African American women before and after her, her plays were still produced by Karamu Theatre in Cleveland and other major Black companies. Her work was also seen in many colleges and both Track Thirteen (1940) and Tom-Tom were aired on the radio.[14]
Due to the difficulty in getting musicals or plays produced and published, Graham turned to literature. She wrote in a variety of genres, specializing from the 1950s in biographies of leading African-American and world figures for young readers. She wanted to increase the number of books that dealt with notable African Americans in elementary school libraries. Owing to her personal knowledge of her subjects, her books on
Selections from her correspondence with her husband (both before and after their relationship began) appear in the three volume 1976 collection edited by Herbert Aptheker (ed.), Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois.[15] Shirley Graham Du Bois is the subject of Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois.[13]
Biographical works
Biographies for young readers:[5]
- with George D. Lipscomb, Dr. George Washington Carver, Scientist, New York: ISBN 978-0671325107)
- Paul Robeson, Citizen of the World, Connecticut, 1946: Greenwood Press, reprint 1972
- Your Most Humble Servant: Benjamin Banneker, New York: Julian Messner, 1949; winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1950[16]
- The Story of Phillis Wheatley: Poetess of the Revolution, New York: Julian Messner, 1949
- The Story of Pocahontas, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1953
- Jean Baptiste Pointe duSable: Founder of Chicago (1953)
- Booker T. Washington: Educator of Head, Hand and Heart, New York: Julian Messner, 1955
- His Day Is Marching On: A Memoir of W.E.B. Du Bois, New York: Lippincott, 1971
- Julius K. Nyerere, Teacher of Africa, New York: Julian Messner, 1975
- Du Bois: A Pictorial Biography, Johnsons, 1978
Novels:
- There Once Was a Slave (1947), the Messner Prize-winning historical novel on the life of Frederick Douglass;[5] and
- Zulu Heart, New York: Third Press, 1974
References
- ISBN 0810345544
- ^ a b c Aptheker, Bettina. "Graham Du Bois, Shirley," in Susan Ware and Stacy Braukman (eds), Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004, pp. 248–249.
- ^ Woo, Elaine (February 10, 2005). "David Graham Du Bois, 79; Professor, Journalist and Stepson of Famed Scholar". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
- ISBN 0810345544
- ^ a b c d e f g "Shirley Graham", Oxford Companion to African-American Literature, 2001, accessed January 18, 2012.
- ISBN 0810345544
- ISBN 9780313296659.
- .
- ^ "Intersections: Recovering the Genius of Shirley Graham Du Bois 2020 Symposium | February 27, 2020". advance.oberlin.edu. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
- ISBN 0810345544
- ^ Linda Ragin, "Review: Gerald Horne, 'Race Woman'" Archived March 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Books for Blacks Website, 2000, accessed January 18, 2012.
- ^ Schmalenberger, Sarah, "Debuting Her Political Voice: The Lost Opera of Shirley Graham", Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 39–87.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8147-3648-7.
- ISBN 1-55783-164-5.
- ISBN 978-1558491038.
- ^ "Shirley Graham". The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
Sources
- Azikiwe, Abayomi. "Pan-Africanism, Shirley Graham Du Bois and Nkrumah's Ghana". Pambazuka News, 16 March 2017.
- "Graham, Shirley". The Broadcast 41.
- D'Amato, Lilyanna. "The Legacy of Black Classical Music: Shirley Graham Du Bois". ClevelandClassical.com, 8 July 2020.
- Gao, Yunxiang. "W. E. B. AND SHIRLEY GRAHAM DU BOIS IN MAOIST CHINA1: Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race". Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 10 June 2013.
- Hine, Darlene Clark, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, New York: Carlson Publishing, 1993
Further reading/links
- Nishikawa, Kinohi. "Shirley Graham" entry, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Ed. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005, pp. 652–53.
- Thompson, Robert Dee. A socio-biography of Shirley Graham-Du Bois: a life in the struggle. University of California, Santa Cruz, 1997 (digitized August 4, 2009)
- Shirley Graham Du Bois profile, African American Registry
- Shirley Graham Du Bois Papers, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
- Shirley Graham Du Bois bibliography, amazon.com; accessed May 2, 2014.
- FBI files on Shirley Graham Du Bois