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Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

"The Souls of Black Folk"

In 1900, the Conference at Atlanta University undertook
to study these graduates, and published the results. First they
sought to know what these graduates were doing, and suc-
ceeded in getting answers from nearly two-thirds of the liv-
ing. The direct testimony was in almost all cases corroborated
by the reports of the colleges where they graduated, so that in
the main the reports were worthy of credence. Fifty-three per
cent of these graduates were teachers,--presidents of institu-
tions, heads of normal schools, principals of city school-
systems, and the like. Seventeen per cent were clergymen;
another seventeen per cent were in the professions, chiefly as
physicians. Over six per cent were merchants, farmers, and
artisans, and four per cent were in the government civil-
service. Granting even that a considerable proportion of the
third unheard from are unsuccessful, this is a record of use-
fulness. Personally I know many hundreds of these graduates,
and have corresponded with more than a thousand; through
others I have followed carefully the life-work of scores; I
have taught some of them and some of the pupils whom they
have taught, lived in homes which they have builded, and
looked at life through their eyes.


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