Extra Mile: DUBOIS, W.E.B. & OVINGTON, Mary White plaque in Washington, D.C. by Sam Pena

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William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an African American civil rights activist, leader, Pan-Africanist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar. He became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963 at the age of 95. In 1905, Du Bois along with Minnesota attorney Fred L. McGhee and others helped to found the Niagara Movement with William Monroe Trotter but their alliance was short-lived as they had a dispute over whether or not white people should be included in the organization and in the struggle for Civil Rights. Du Bois felt that they should, and with a group of like-minded supporters, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Source: Wikipedia

Mary White Ovington(born April 11, 1865 in Brooklyn, New York - died July 15, 1951) a suffragette, socialist, unitarian, journalist, and co-founder of the NAACP. Her parents, members of the Unitarian Church were supporters of women's rights and had been involved in anti-slavery movement. Ovington became involved in the campaign for civil rights in 1890 after hearing Frederick Douglass speak in a Brooklyn church. In 1895 she helped found the Greenpoint Settlement in Brooklyn. Appointed head of the project the following year, Ovington remained until 1904 when she was appointed fellow of the Greenwich House Committee on Social Investigations. Over the next five years she studied employment and housing problems in black Manhattan. During her investigations she met William Du Bois, an African American from Harvard University, and she was introduced to the founding members of the Niagara Movement. Source: Wikipedia

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909 by a diverse group composed of W.E.B. Du Bois (African American), Ida Wells-Barnett (African American), Henry Moskowitz (Jewish), Mary White Ovington (White), Oswald Garrison Villard (German-born White), and William English Walling (White, and son of a former slave owning family), to work on behalf of the rights of African Americans. Its name, retained in accord with tradition, is one of the last surviving uses of the term "colored people." The group is based in Baltimore, Maryland. Source: Wikipedia

IN 1909 W.E.B. DUBOIS, A LEADING SPOKESMAN IN THE CAMPAIGN FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, JOINED MARY WHITE OVINGTON, MOORFIELD STOREY, WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING, JOHN MILHOLLAND, OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, FRANCES BLASCOER AND 54 OTHER PROMINENT AMERICANS AS FOUNDING OFICERS OF THE NAACP. BOTH OVINGTON AND DUBOIS SERVED IN CRUCIAL ROLES AT THE NAACP FOR DECADES, HELPING GUIDE ITS POLICIES AND PROGRAMS.

"I belive that all men, black and brown and white, are brothers, varying in time and opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and the possibility of infinite development."
W.E.B. DUBOIS

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0000500/00730_0000010690 (added ca. 2006)

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0000500/00730_0000010700 (added ca. 2006)

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Artist: Sam Pena(click name for more of that artist's work)
Related subjects: Civil Rights
Location: G St NW east of 14th St Washington, D.C. Extra Mile

Nearest Metro: Federal Triangle(Orange - Blue - Silver) (click station name for all sculptures nearby) (dcMem ID #730 )

Links & other sources
Extra Mile website
Wikipedia article on Dubois
Wikipedia article on Ovington
Wikipedia article on NAACP

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