Shirley Graham Du Bois

Shirley Graham Du Bois (1896–1977) was an author, playwright, composer, conductor, director, and activist. In 1932, she became the first Black woman to write and produce an all-black opera, Tom-Toms: An Epic of Music and the Negro. For a year, she served as the national field secretary for the NAACP. She wrote the biographies of famous Black Americans, including Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass. She was married to W. E. B Du Bois and fought for the rights of Black people alongside him.