conditions of black Americans that would make him the most influential black intellectual of his time. His doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slavetrade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, was published in 1896 as the initial volume in the Harvard Historical Studies Series. After teaching for several years at Wilberforce University in Ohio, Du Bois conducted an exhaustive study of the social and economic conditions of urban blacks in Philadelphia in 1896 and 1897. The results were published in The Philadelphia Negro (1899), the first sociological text on a black community published in the United States. After he became a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University in 1897, he initiated a series of studies as head of the school's "Negro Problem" program. These works had a profound impact on the study of the history and sociology of blacks living in the United States. In 1897 Du Bois made a famous statement on the ambiguity of the black identity: "One feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body." He advanced these views even further in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a powerful collection of essays in which he described some of the key themes of the black experience, especially the efforts of black Americans to reconcile their African heritage with their pride in being U.S. citizens. With The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois had begun to challenge the leadership of Booker T. Washington, a fellow educator who was then the most influential and admired black in the United States. Du Bois objected to Washington's strategy of accommodation and compromise with whites in both politics and education. Du Bois perceived this strategy as accepting the denial of black citizenship rights. He also criticized Washington's emphasis on the importance of industrial education for blacks, which Du Bois felt came at the expense of hi...
