The correspondence is arranged chronologically by year, and alphabetically by name of correspondent within each year. There are two major exceptions to this arrangement: (1) The correspondence from 1877 to 1910 is so sparse, compared to other years, that it has been grouped together in a single alphabetical sequence; (2) By the beginning of 1911, and lasting through 1934, Du Bois had so much correspondence as editor of The Crisis (first issue in November 1910) that Crisis correspondence has been separated into a discrete group within each year. In each of those years the General correspondence comes first, with a complete alphabet of correspondents, followed by Crisis- related correspondence in a second complete alphabet.

Series 1, Correspondence, constitutes over three-fourths of the Du Bois Papers at the University of Massachusetts. It includes correspondence received by Du Bois and carbon copies of letters he wrote to others throughout his life. His life covered ninety-five years of important social change in the United States and in the world, during which Du Bois was a leading participant in many of the most important efforts for change. He knew and corresponded with many of the leading figures of his long lifetime.

Du Bois' correspondence files reflect his involvement in many areas of twentieth century racial, literary and social reform movements. The 100,000 or more items document his career and provide a wealth of information on the work of others with whom Du Bois came into contact. The earliest item of correspondence is from 1877, although the bulk of the material is from the post-1910 period. The files continue through the years of his work with the NAACP, teaching and research at Atlanta University during the 1930s and 1940s, return to the NAACP in 1944, involvement with the peace movement in the late 1940s and the 1950s, and work with the Encyclopedia Africana until his death in 1963. A few items of Shirley Graham Du Bois' correspondence concerning Du Bois from late 1963, 1964 and 1965 bring this part of the collection to a close. Numbered among Du Bois' correspondents are such figures as Jane Addams, Sherwood Anderson, Ralph Bunche, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Chesnutt, Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Ghandi, W.C. Handy, Langston Hughes, William James, James Weldon Johnson, Jomo Kenyatta, Martin Luther King Jr., Claude Mckay, Margaret Mead, Kwame Nkrumah, Eugene O'Neill, Sylvia Pankhurst, A. Phillip Randolph, Paul Robeson, Eleanor, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur and Joel Spingarn, Moorfield Storey, Mary Church Terrell, Carl Van Vechien, Booker T. Washington, H.G. Wells, Walter White, Roy Wilkins and many other key participants in the history of Du Bois' time.

Series 2, Speeches, includes the manuscripts of over three hundred different speeches, ranging from those he gave at his college commencements from Fisk and Harvard to others delivered near the end of his life. Most date from the 1940s and 1950s and show his interest in world peace, colonialism, and developments in Africa and America. Many speeches are available from his 1950 campaign for election as United States Senator from New York. These speeches as a whole contain Du Bois' developed (and developing) thoughts on various subjects. While a number of his speeches were published, it is worth noting that he would revise the spoken version considerably before releasing it for publication. Thus the original manuscripts retain considerable research value even in cases where the speech was later published, some in greatly revised form.

The manuscripts are arranged in five subseries, and chronologically within each subseries.

Manuscripts of articles include drafts and other versions of many of the items published by Du Bois in the numerous journals to which he contributed over his lifetime. In addition, complete or incomplete manuscripts are to be found for many articles which apparently were never published. In all, over four hundred manuscripts of articles are in the collection, with dates ranging from the 1880s to articles published after his death in 1963. They are typescripts unless otherwise indicated.

(A) Articles, published, other than in Crisis

(B) Articles published in Crisis

(C) Articles not known to have been published

(D) Articles in printed form

(E) Crisis articles in printed form

They are arranged alphabetically by title of the newspaper, and chronologically within each paper.

Manuscript versions of Du Bois' columns for the Chicago Defender, Chicago Globe, Freedom, National Guardian, New Africa, New York Amsterdam News, People's Voice, and Pittsburgh Courier show his thoughts on the news and events of the day. It is important to note that the various newspaper editors did not always publish the columns he submitted, but would occasionally find room to publish only selected portions. Some column manuscripts were, in fact, never published, but they are important as Du Bois' intended public statements of his views.

The works are arranged alphabetically by title.

Manuscripts of nonfiction books include several unpublished items. A World Search for Democracy (mostly complete) was prepared in the late 1930s. Also of interest are Russia and America: An Interpretation; This Africa: How it Arose, Whither it Goes; and research notes for the Encyclopedia of the Negro and for a study of the Black soldier in World War I, "The Black Man and the Wounded World." There are prospectuses of several books. Of those books that were published, of particular interest are several surviving handwritten chapters from The Souls of Black Folk and a complete typescript, with handwritten corrections, of A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life form the Last Decade of Its First Century: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois. There are also other manuscripts of published works.

Research materials in the Papers include typescripts, handwritten manuscripts, and clipped and other printed materials, arranged in the following sequence: research notes on Africa, general research notes, notes that appear likely to have been made for speeches or articles, and miscellaneous research materials. There are about 800 to 1,000 pages in all, in these four groups.

The materials are arranged chronologically.

Materials that resulted, or were intended to result, in pamphlets or leaflets appear in this series in typed, handwritten, and/or printed form. The publications range from 1902 until 1962, and the subjects show a great variety, ranging from Du Bois' 1904 Credo and a Bibliography of the Negro Folk Song in America to Blacks, Black education, Benjamin Franklin, peace and the H-bomb.

Fifty-five reviews by Du Bois of books by other authors are included here, in chronological order from 1905 to 1961. Du Bois concentrated, in these reviews, on Blacks, Africa, the American South, and race relations.

Petitions here include the manuscript of Du Bois' introduction and the contributions of some other authors to the NAACP's 1947 "Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities..." and other petitions from then to 1961.

Each of the subseries indicated in the series title is arranged chronologically.

The subseries Essays is limited to Du Bois' contributions to encyclopedias and other works of multiple authorship. Most were published 1924-1962, but several apparently were never published. There are five Forewords contributed by Du Bois to books written by others between 1922 and 1962. The Student Papers are arranged in four groups: papers at Fisk around 1888; papers at Harvard, 1888-1891; student papers, largely on economics and politics, from the 1890s; and "Sketches, 1889-1896," which includes some travel notes, journals, notes on celebrations of his birthday, and some creative writing.

The materials are arranged alphabetically by title, with a number of untitled or unidentified fragments and notes at the end of the file.

The earliest evidence in the Papers of Du Bois as a novelist is the manuscript and plot outline of A Fellow of Harvard, 1892, when Du Bois was twenty-four years old. The latest is fragments and notes concerning his trilogy The Black Flame and notes on Worlds of Color, both dating from 1961.

The pageants are arranged alphabetically by title.

Du Bois' pageants were large-scale presentations on the course of Black history that were designed to appeal to a mass audience. His most famous pageant, The Star of Ethiopia, designed for a cast of 1,000, was presented in 1913 in New York, in 1915 in Washington, in 1916 in Philadelphia, and in 1925 in Los Angeles. The Star of Ethiopia papers include typescripts and manuscripts, stage directions, posters, programs, and financial records of some productions. Manuscripts for other pageants include George Washington and Black Folk: A Pageant for the Bicentennary, 1732-1932; The Jewel of Ethiopia; The Seven Gifts of Ethiopia; The Nine Tales of Black Folk, and others.

The manuscripts of plays are in two groups.

The first, Playthings of the Night, was intended for book publication in 1931, and contains introductory essays by Du Bois and various drafts of five plays. The second group, The Darker Wisdom, was intended for book publication in 1940, and contains manuscripts of four of the five plays in the previously proposed title (one with a changed title). The plays included are The All Mother (later entitled The Slave, the Serf, and the Blond Beast); Black Hercules at the Forks of the Road; Black Man; Christ on the Andes; and Seven Up. An outline for The Prodigal Race, an unidentified fragment of a play or tale, and variant title pages or subtitles are also included.

The handwritten and typed manuscripts are in two groups: seven "fables" of one to two pages each, and some thirty- five longer short stories plus a few fragments. The earliest dated item is an 1895 story about Wilberforce University. Du Bois continued to write in this genre at least into the 1950s, when there are many stories signed "Bud Weisob," an anagram of his own name, perhaps an attempt to avoid the McCarthy era's blacklisting of known or suspected Communists. The great majority of the stories were never published.

The poetry is arranged in two groups: about 130 pages of poetry that was published, mostly in Horizon, The Crisis and Masses and Mainstream, and about two hundred pages that remain unpublished or unidentified.

Throughout his life Du Bois wrote poetry. Among his notable published efforts were "The Song of the Smoke," "The Christmas Prayers of God," "Suez," and "Ghana Calls."

Genealogical records include vital, military, financial, and land records; lists of relatives and important family dates, two diaries (1856 and 1861) of Du Bois' paternal grandfather Alexander Du Bois; and correspondence of his (1875 and 1878). There are manuscript and printed materials from Du Bois' years at Great Barrington High School; Fisk University, including his certificates and contracts for teaching in Tennessee in 1886 and 1887; Harvard University; the University of Berlin; and Wilberforce and Atlanta University. Also included are brief biographies of Du Bois, bibliographies of his writings, a list of books in his personal library, and a typed transcription of an unpublished oral history interview with Du Bois by William Ingersoll in 1960. Works by others include Shirley Graham Du Bois' notes and fragments of speeches for the legal defense of Du Bois in 1951; six poems by Yolande Du Bois; manuscript speeches and published articles by one of Du Bois' assistants, Hugh Smythe; handwritten and typed articles and speeches by others; and printed materials dealing in the main with the status, education, and economics of Blacks.

The photographs are arranged in three groups.

First are several hundred photographs that Du Bois solicited for publication in The Crisis: photographs of Black children, Black recipients of college degrees and honors, and Blacks in important positions. This series of photographs published in The Crisis is Du Bois' contribution to, and probably the initiation of, the marshaling of evidence that "Black is beautiful." Almost all of the photographs are identified on the backs and in the Selective Item List in the finding aid. The second group is just under two hundred Du Bois family and personal photographs, including one album arranged in roughly chronological order. Some of the most-photographed trips and other events in Du Bois' life have been arranged, together with photographs on other specific topics, among the approximately three hundred photographs in the third group, "Theme" photographs.

This series comprises medals, badges, and certificates of honorary and earned degrees and other awards and honors. There are nearly one hundred items, ranging from class reunion badges to the Spingarn Medal won by Du Bois in 1920, the Du Bois Medal created in his honor by the American Negro Commemorative Society, the Lenin Medal, and certificates of election to Phi Beta Kappa, honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad, and election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1944.

Motion pictures and videotape copies of Du Bois receiving honorary degree in Prague in 1958 and visiting Premier Chou En-lai, Vice-Premier Chen Yi, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and others in China in 1959; and of the dedication in 1969 and dedication as a National Historic Landmark in 1979 of Du Bois' homesite in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Audiotapes of the burial service of Du Bois, August 29, 1963 and tribute by Kwame Nkrumah.

The collection of newspaper clippings about Du Bois and subjects of interest to him (currently unorganized).

Copies of Du Bois materials were obtained by the staff of Special Collections and University Archives from other archival sources and by donation from individuals. Much of the latter was donated by Herbert Aptheker and was used by him in the preparation of his three-volume edition of The Correspondence of W.E.B. Du Bois (University of Massachusetts Press). Copies Aptheker furnished usually include a note from him describing the documents and indicating their sources. Types of materials in this series are: correspondence; U.S.government files; manuscripts and transcripts by Du Bois of speeches, articles, student papers and plays; transcripts of conversations; town records; microfilm copies of papers in other collections, of journals to which Du Bois contributed, and of exhibition materials compiled by Du Bois; published material by Du Bois not in the collection; articles about Du Bois; bibliographies; and guides to Du Bois materials in other collections.

The miscellaneous materials consist of: publicity about the papers, the homesite, W.E.B. Du Bois Day and Black History Month in Massachusetts, 1984; audiotapes of lectures by Herbert Aptheker on Du Bois and of a National Public Radio broadcast, "A Question of Place"; a Crisis anniversary issue; and other printed and videotaped material.

Some original Du Bois materials have been added to the collection since the microfilming of the papers. These materials include: correspondence; manuscripts; speeches; photographs and copies of documents from the University of Berlin; mementos; an unbound copy of Notre Beau Niger (first chapter missing); and six boxes of FBI files on Du Bois, the Council on African Affairs, and the Peace Information Center, requested by the Library under the Freedom of Information Act.