“David Graham Du Bois’s Life in Black History”

Phillip Luke Sinitiere, senior research fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst and professor of history and humanities at the College of Biblical Studies in Houston, will speak at Denison, Wednesday, Sept. 23, on the global career of David Graham Du Bois.

Sinitiere’s talk traces his subject’s roles as a writer, educator, and activist, examining how Du Bois forged his own distinct place in Black history while rooted in a profound family legacy as the son of playwright Shirley Graham Du Bois and adopted stepson of noted intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois.

Sinitiere weaves together snapshots of David Graham Du Bois across the decades — from his 1960s journalism for Cairo-based newspapers like the Egyptian Gazette and Arab Observer to his mid-1970s role as spokesperson and newspaper editor for the Black Panther Party; his criminology and journalism faculty appointments at UC Berkeley and UMass Amherst in the 1970s and 1980s; and his 1990s activism advancing the political and intellectual legacies of his parents in both the United States and Ghana.

Sinitiere’s lecture draws from his extensive scholarship as the author of Citizen of the World: The Late Career and Legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois (2019), Forging Freedom in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Twilight Years (2023), and Shirley Graham Du Bois: Artist, Activist, and Author in the African Diaspora (2025).

Co-sponsored by the Black studies, history, and philosophy departments, this event is free and open to Denison faculty, students, and staff.