Shirley Graham Du Bois | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Graham in 1946 | |
| Born | Lola Shirley Graham Jr. (1896-11-11)November 11, 1896 Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | March 27, 1977(1977-03-27) (aged 80) Beijing, China |
| Education | Howard University Oberlin College |
| Occupation(s) | writer playwright composer activist |
| Spouse(s) | Shadrach T. McCants (1921-1927; divorced) W.E.B. Du Bois (1951-1963; his death) |
| Children | 2 |
Shirley Graham Du Bois (bornLola Shirley Graham Jr.; November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American-Ghanaian writer, playwright, composer, and activist forAfrican-American causes, among others. She won the Messner and theAnisfield-Wolf prizes for her works.
She was born Lola Shirley Graham Jr. inIndianapolis, Indiana, in 1896, as the only daughter among five children. Her father was anAfrican Methodist Episcopalminister and the family moved often due to her father's work in parsonages throughout the country.[1] In June 1915, Shirley graduated fromLewis and Clark High School inSpokane, Washington.[2]
She married her first husband, Shadrach T. McCants, in 1921. Their son Robert was born in 1923, followed by David Graham Du Bois[3] in 1925. In 1926, Graham moved toParis, France, to study music composition at theSorbonne. It was there that she began composing the playTom-Tom.[4][5] She thought that the education in Paris might allow her to achieve better employment and be able to better support her children. Meeting Africans and Afro-Caribbean people in Paris introduced her to new music and cultures. Graham and McCants divorced in 1927.
Graham served as music librarian while attendingHoward University as a nonmatriculated student under the tutelage of ProfessorRoy W. Tibbs. He recommended her for a teaching position atMorgan College which led to her position as head of the music department from 1929 to 1931.[6]
In 1931, Graham enteredOberlin College as an advanced student and, after earning her BA in 1934, went on to do graduate work in music, completing a master's degree in 1935.[7] In 1936,Hallie Flanagan appointed Graham director of the ChicagoNegro Unit of theFederal Theater Project, part of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt'sWorks Progress Administration. She wrote musical scores, directed, and did additional associated work.[7]
She convertedTom-Tom into a full opera in 1932, and it premiered inCleveland, Ohio, commissioned by the Stadium Opera Company.Tom Tom featured an all-Black cast and orchestra,[4] structured in three acts; act one taking place in an Indigenous African tribe, act two portraying an American slave plantation, and the final act taking place in 1920sHarlem. The music features elements of blues and spirituals, as well as jazz with elements of opera. The score of this opera was considered lost and has not been performed since its premiere until it was rediscovered in 2001 at Harvard University.
Graham briefly worked at theFederal Theatre Project before it was shut down in 1939 by a group of anti-communists.Elizabeth Dilling – a white-supremacist and staunch anti-communist – as well as SenatorRobert Rice Reynolds, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-semite, sought to defund the Federal Theatre Project. The Federal Theatre Project eventually was defunded as a result of this anti-communist and racist rhetoric. From 1940 to 1942, Graham worked at thePhillis WheatleyYoung Women's Christian Association (YWCA) inIndianapolis, Indiana, where she focused on establishing a theatre program and then became the director of the YMCA-USO group inFort Huachuca, Arizona.[8] The YWCA supported the Federal Anti-Lynching Law. However, Elizabeth Dilling and anti-communist and white-supremacist groups had claimed that YWCA was a "Communist-front organizations controlled by Jews" and attacked the organization's support for equal rights for Black peoples. Dilling's publication of "Red Channels" ultimately launched anti-communist backlash against Graham Du Bois, resulting in her work being pulled from libraries and censored.
In the late 1940s, Graham became a member ofSojourners for Truth and Justice – an African-American organization working for global women's liberation.[2] Around the same time, she joined theAmerican Communist Party.[2]
In 1951, she marriedW. E. B. Du Bois,[9]: 36 the second marriage for both. She was 54 years old; he was 83.
After the United States Supreme Court ruled that the State Department could not deny passports to citizens who refused to sign affidavits that they were not communists, Graham Du Bois and Du Bois immediately applied for passports.[9]: 12
In 1958, Graham Du Bois and her husband visited Ghana, where she spoke at theAll-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 honoringKwame 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 theOrganization of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo in 1964 and consulted withMalcolm X on the efforts of theOrganization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) to get support for the issues inside the US among heads of state, the UN and national liberation movements. Graham announced the start of a course on television screenwriting inAccra to create a group of writers for Ghana National Television.
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. TheChinese Communist Party in 1959 commemorated W. E. B. Du Bois by publishing his bookThe 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. ThePeople's Daily recognized her as a member of theWorld Peace Council and of the national committee for the Association of American-Soviet Friendship.[9]: 37
In part influenced by her experiences withChinese state feminism, Graham Du Bois became increasingly political upon her return to the United States and became the editor ofFreedomways magazine.[9]: 61–62
Living in Ghana in 1961, Graham Du Bois and her husbandrenounced their U.S. citizenship.[9]: 62
The United StatesFederal Bureau of Investigation "kept tabs" on their activities in Ghana.[9]: 62
In 1967, she was forced to leave Ghana soon after the 1966 military-led coup d'état, and moved toCairo, Egypt, where her surviving son David was working as a journalist.[10] There she continued writing, studied Arabic and become a supporter ofAfrocentrism. Later she moved to China again in the midst of theCultural Revolution. During this time, Graham Du Bois sided with the Chinese communists in theSino-Soviet split. She had praised China's music programs in Shanghai and she joined theBureau of Afro-Asian Writers. Graham Du Bois spent time inpeople's communes and with theRed Guards.[11]
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.[12]
She produced a movie in China calledWomen of the New China in 1974. Shirley Graham Du Bois died in Beijing, China, in 1977, where she is buried in theBabaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. Her funeral was attended by many important political figures in China, including Cheng Yonggui,Deng Yingchao, andHuo 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.[13]
Shirley Graham Du Bois died ofbreast cancer on March 27, 1977, aged 80, inBeijing, China,[14] and was buried at theBabaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.[9]: 68 She died as a citizen of Tanzania, Ghana, and the United States. She had moved from Ghana toTanzania after Ghanaian presidentKwame Nkrumah was overthrown on February 24, 1966, and became close to Tanzanian president,Julius Nyerere, and acquired Tanzanian citizenship.[15]
Her alma materOberlin Conservatory of Music recently honored DuBois offering cluster courses and a conference devoted to reviving her remarkable legacy as a composer, activist and media figure. The conference was calledIntersections: Recovering the Genius of Shirley Graham Du Bois 2020 Symposium on Thursday and Friday, February 27 and 28, 2020, that included a plenary lecture byColumbia professor and authorFarah Jasmine Griffin.[16] The event was co-sponsored by The Gertrude B. Lemle Teaching Center, StudiOC, a grant from theAndrew W. Mellon Foundation, Dean of The college, Dean of the Conservatory, History Department,Oberlin College Libraries, Africana Studies Department, and the Theater Department.
Her papers are archived at;
After meeting Africans in Paris while studying at the Sorbonne in 1926, Graham composed the musical score and libretto ofTom 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.[18] It premiered inCleveland, Ohio.[19] The opera attracted 10,000 people to its premiere at the Cleveland Stadium and 15,000 to the second performance.[7][20]
According to theOxford Companion to African-American Literature, her theatre works includedDeep 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; andDust to Earth (1941), a three-act tragedy.[7]
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 bothTrack Thirteen (1940) andTom-Tom were aired on the radio.[21]
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 onPaul Robeson andKwame Nkrumah are considered especially interesting. Other subjects includedFrederick Douglass,Phillis Wheatley, andBooker T. Washington; as well asGamal Abdul Nasser, andJulius Nyerere. With the involvement ofLiu Liangmo, state publishing houses in China translated and published her biographies of Robeson andGeorge Washington Carver.[9]: 36–37
One of her last novels,Zulu Heart (1974), included sympathetic portrayals of whites in South Africa despite racial conflicts.[7]
In 1974, Graham Du Bois producedWomen of New China, a film which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.[9]: 68
Selections from her correspondence with her husband (both before and after their relationship began) appear in the three-volume 1976 collection edited byHerbert Aptheker (ed.),Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois.[22] Shirley Graham Du Bois is the subject ofRace Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois.[20]
Biographies for young readers:[7]
Novels:
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