Shirley Graham Du Bois
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shirley Graham Du Bois (November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American-born author, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American and other causes, as well as spouse of noted African-American thinker, writer, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois.
She was born Lola Shirley Graham in Evansville, Indiana, in 1896, but often gave her age as up to ten years younger. Her father was a Protestant minister, and the family moved often.
She married her first husband, Shadrach T. McCants, in 1921, and divorced him in 1927. (In her memoir, however, she had asserted that she was widowed by 1925.) Their son Robert was born in 1923, followed by David in 1925.
In 1929, Graham relocated to Paris, France, to study music composition. She reasoned that this education might allow her to achieve better employment and be able to better support her children.
Graham and Du Bois married in 1951. They later emigrated to Ghana, where they received citizenship in 1961 and he died in 1963. In 1967, she was forced to leave after a military-led coup d'etat.
She moved to Cairo, Egypt, where she continued writing. Her surviving son accompanied her and worked as a journalist.
Shirley Graham Du Bois died of breast cancer on March 27, 1977 in Beijing,China, where she had gone for treatment.
[edit] Quotes
- "We are a race of artists. What are we doing about it?" ("Towards an American Theatre" Arts Quarterly Oct-Dec 1937 [1])
[edit] Further reading
Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia, 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York (ISBN 0-926019-61-9)
Horne, Gerald. Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
