BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Over the years she studied at the Sorbonne, Oberlin, and attended Yale on a Rosenwald Fellowship in Creative Writing. She received both her bachelor's degree and a master's degree in music from Oberlin. After receiving her MA degree, she was appointed Head of the Fine Arts Department at Tennessee State College. Later she took over the directorship of the Negro United of the Federal Theater in Chicago. While in that position she adapted Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape for an all black cast and worked on a black version of The Mikado. She also wrote the music for a children's play.

An avid historian, she also wrote biographies of Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Benjamin Banneker, and Paul Robeson.

Graham was married to educator and social reformer W.E.B DuBois in 1951, one year after the death of Nina Du Bois, his wife of fifty-five years. During the next ten years the Du Boises were involved in various and sundry legal battles with the government during the McCarthy era over Du Bois' involvement with the Communist Party. In 1961 the Du Boises moved to Ghana and became citizens at the instigation of then President Kwane Nkrumah.

After her husband's death in 1963 and the military coup in 1967 which ousted Nkrumah from power, Shirley Graham Du Bois moved to Cairo where she lived for many years. When she later tried to return to the United States, the State Department refused to issue her a visa citing her association with subversive groups over the years. She was subsequently allowed to visit the United States for two months in 1971. During a more exhaustive visit in 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Shirley Graham Du Bois died on March 27, 1977 in Peking, China where she had gone for treatment for breast cancer.

PLAYS

"Tom-Tom"-1932

First premiered at the Cleveland Stadium as part of the "Theatre of Nations."

"Dust to Earth"-1940

Produced at Yale University, 1941.

"Elijah's Ravens"-1930

Produced by the gilpin Players, Cleveland, Ohio.

"It's Morning"-1940

First produced at Yale University; directed by Otto Preminger.

CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES

For full citations of books listed, follow the links to the Resources Page.

Books marked with book covers or a are linked to an Amazon.com record. Black American Writers

Black Female Playwrights

Current Biography 1946

Early Black American Playwrights and Dramatic Writers

Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

Living Black American Authors

Oxford Companion to African American Literature

Reference Library of Black America

Roots of African-American Drama

RESEARCH CENTERS

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

WEB DuBois Manuscript College, Library of Congress.

The Julius Rosenwald Archives at Fisk University contain materials dating from her 1938 grant application until the end of 1946. The Black Oral History Collection in the Fisk library includes an oral history interview with Shirley Graham Du Bois.