Editing W. E. B. Du Bois (section)

===United Nations===
[[File:WEB Du Bois 1946.jpg|upright|thumb|alt=A portrait of an elderly African American man|right|Du Bois in 1946, photo by [[Carl Van Vechten]]]]

Du Bois was a member of the three-person delegation from the NAACP that attended the 1945 [[United Nations Conference on International Organization|conference in San Francisco]] at which the [[United Nations]] was established.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lewis|2009|p=654}}.</ref> The NAACP delegation wanted the United Nations to endorse [[racial equality]] and to bring an end to the [[Imperialism#Age of Imperialism|colonial era]]. To push the United Nations in that direction, Du Bois drafted a proposal that pronounced "[t]he colonial system of government ... is undemocratic, socially dangerous and a main cause of wars".<ref>{{Harvnb|Lewis|2009|p=656}}.</ref> The NAACP proposal received support from China, India, and the Soviet Union, but it was virtually ignored by the other major powers, and the NAACP proposals were not included in the final [[Charter of the United Nations|United Nations Charter]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Lewis|2009|pp=655, 657}}.</ref>

After the United Nations conference, Du Bois published ''Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace'', a book that attacked [[colonial empire]]s and, in the words of a most sympathetic reviewer, "contains enough dynamite to blow up the whole vicious system whereby we have comforted our white souls and lined the pockets of generations of free-booting capitalists."<ref>Overstreet, H. A., ''Saturday Review'', quoted in Lewis, p. 657.</ref>

In late 1945, Du Bois attended the fifth, and final, Pan-African Congress, in [[Manchester]], England. The congress was the most productive of the five congresses, and there Du Bois met [[Kwame Nkrumah]], the future first president of [[Ghana]], who later invited him to Africa.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lewis|2009|p=661}}.</ref>

Du Bois helped to submit petitions to the UN concerning discrimination against African Americans, the most noteworthy of which was the NAACP's "An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress".<ref>[[iarchive:Appeal-To-World-NAACP-1947|"A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress"]], National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1947; [http://www.blackpast.org/1947-w-e-b-dubois-appeal-world-statement-denial-human-rights-minorities-case-citizens-n "(1947) W.E.B. DuBois, "An Appeal to the World : A Statement of Denial of Human Rights to Minorities..."]. Via BlackPast, May 3, 2011.</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|last=Plummer|first=Brenda Gayle|date= June 19, 2020|title=Civil Rights Has Always Been a Global Movement: How Allies Abroad Help the Fight Against Racism at Home|volume=99|number=5|magazine=[[Foreign Affairs]]|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-06-19/civil-rights-has-always-been-global-movement |url-access=subscription|quote=The United Nations formed at last in 1945, and the U.S. government gave the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Council of Negro Women ceremonial roles as observers at the founding conference, in the hope of encouraging domestic support for the new institution. Washington was displeased, however, when, in 1947, the NAACP submitted a 96-page petition to the UN Commission on Human Rights, asking it to investigate human rights violations against African Americans in the United States. Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois and titled "An Appeal to the World," the document began with a pointed denunciation of American hypocrisy.}}</ref> This advocacy laid the foundation for the later report and petition called "[[We Charge Genocide]]", submitted in 1951 by the [[Civil Rights Congress]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/We-Charge-Genocide-1970|title=We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People|last=Civil Rights Congress|date=August 28, 1970|access-date=August 28, 2017|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> "We Charge Genocide" accuses the U.S. of systematically sanctioning murders and inflicting harm against African Americans and therefore committing [[genocide]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Martin |first1=Charles H. |title=Internationalizing 'The American Dilemma': The Civil Rights Congress and the 1951 Genocide Petition to the United Nations |journal=Journal of American Ethnic History |date=1997 |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=35–61 |jstor=27502217 }}</ref>