William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, a renowned American sociologist, writer, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist, passed away on August 27, 1963, in Accra, Ghana, at the age of 95. He was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. A state funeral was held in Ghana on August 29-30, 1963, and he was interred near Christiansborg Castle in Accra.