Pronouncing Du Bois -- ep. by Howard Rambsy II

A brief take on the varied pronunciations of W. E. B. Du Bois’s name, revealing how letters, scholars, and shifting preferences reflect the ongoing reception of one of Black America’s most influential intellectuals.

Written by Howard Rambsy II 

Read by Kassandra Timm

Transcript

Say his name. Say his name. Say his names?

He was the first Black person to earn a PhD from Harvard University.

He was a prolific author, producing The Souls of Black Folk, among other notable works, and he served as the founding editor of the NAACP’s The Crisis magazine from 1910 to 1934.

He is, by many accounts, our greatest intellectual.

With all of that, there’s still confusion about how to say his name.

You’re listening to Remarkable Receptions — a podcast about popular and critical responses to African American artistic productions and more.

Born with the first and middle names William Edward Burghardt, he was known as Willie when he was young. Over time, though, the world shortened his first and middle names to W. E. B., and came to know him by his last name. But how exactly should we pronounce it? 

Du Boyss? Du Boice?

Scholars agree that he wanted to distance himself from the French pronunciation, technically “Du-bwah,” but he insisted on an Americanized version.

In a 1939 letter to members of the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, where he was scheduled to speak, he clarified: “My name is pronounced in the clear English fashion: Du, with u as in Sue; Bois, as oi in voice.”
 

So: Du Boice. Got it. 

Then, in a December 1946 letter to S. R. Spencer, he wrote: “The pronunciation of my name is ‘Du Boyss,’ with the accent on the last syllable.” The spelling he offered was D-U-B-O-Y-S-S.
 

So: Du Boyss.

In his 1993 book W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, historian David Levering Lewis noted the Du Boyss pronunciation in the text, and in the footnotes cites both the 1939 and 1946 letters, each giving a slightly different guide. Today, some people go with Du Boice, and others prefer Du Boyss. 

Given his stature, and the remarkable reception of his life and work, we’ll keep saying his name, or names.

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This episode was written by Howard Rambsy, edited by Elizabeth Cali, and read by me, Kassandra Timm.

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