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W.E.B. Du Bois was a pivotal scholar of the 20th century who had a sustained global impact on sociological, literary, and political knowledge. Although he produced groundbreaking sociological scholarship in a historically black school – Atlanta University, his work was marginalized and erased due to racism and the radicalness of his scholarship. This article demonstrates that Du Bois was a founder of scientific sociology in the United States who developed a pioneering and distinct Atlanta School of sociology. This article advances two theses: Du Bois developed an emancipatory school of sociology that theorized and empirically documented the causes of racial and social inequality and that the Atlanta School gave rise to pioneering scientific social research at historically Black colleges and universities that served as intellectual weapons in the struggle for racial equality.

I am honoured to present the 2016 British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture at the London School of Economics. My lecture is based on ideas derived from my new book, The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. In this essay I make three arguments. First, W.E.B. Du Bois and his Atlanta School of Sociology pioneered scientific sociology in the United States. Second, Du Bois pioneered a public sociology that creatively combined sociology and activism. Finally, Du Bois pioneered a politically engaged social science relevant for contemporary political struggles including the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.