Some Pan-Africanists and scholars from Ghana and the diaspora have urged students to live by the tenets of Dr W. E. B. Du Bois and carry on his legacy.
The students, from some tertiary institutions in Ghana, were asked not to be self-centred but fearless and work for the common good of humanity.
This was at a symposium to commemorate the 155th Anniversary of the birth of Dr Du Bois.
Dr Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, Assistant Professor, Africana Studies, Morehouse College, USA, said Africans and people of African descent needed to imbibe his values and fight the ills of society.
Speaking under the theme: “The Gift That Keeps Giving”, as part of the Black History Month celebration, she called on the students to fight against modern day slavery and systemic racial abuse.
“Dr Du Bois wanted the black people to come into their own consciousness and uplift their activism through institutions of higher learning to help attain personal, political and economic autonomy,” Dr Sims-Alvarado said.
She urged the students to have education that was grounded and interwoven with service learning since those were some of the values Dr Du Bois stood for.
“Services learning means you apply the knowledge you have acquired to help your community,” Dr Sims-Alvarado said.
Mr Jeffrey Alan Peck, a great grandson of Dr Du Bois, said, the works and contributions of his great grandfather widen the horizon of all black people.
He said: “He was a source of motivation for people like former US President Barack Hussein Obama and others.”
Mr Alan Peck said Dr Du Bois had not completed the freedom and development crusade and there was the need to continue from he ended.
Mr Japhet Aryiku, Executive Director, W. E. B. Du Bois Museum Foundation, said, the Pan-Africanist life hinged on three cardinal pillars which he termed as “The Trinity.”
“Dr Du Bois is the Father of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, the Son of the Modern Movement of Racial Equality and Justice and the Spirit of the Pan-African Movement,” he said.
Dr Du Bois had authored many books and started the Africana Encyclopedia in Ghana during his three years of stay in Ghana.
He was born in 1868 and died in Ghana in 1963.
