The first American of African descent to earn a doctorate at Harvard went on to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and become a major figure in the early civil rights movement. WEB Dubois was a leader of the Niagara Movement, founded in 1905 to bring an end to segregation and obtain voting rights for African Americans. He also helped to organize several Pan-African congresses to free African nations of their European colonizers. He believed that many of the problems inherent in 20^th century society were fed by what he called the “color line”. Just one year after his death, many of the reforms to which he dedicated his life were enacted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.