Shirley Graham Du Bois (November 11, 1896 – March 27, 1977) was an American-Ghanaian writer, playwright, composer, and activist for African-American causes. Born in Indianapolis to an Episcopal minister, she moved with her family throughout the United States as a child. After marrying her first husband, she moved to Paris to study music at the Sorbonne. After her divorce and return to the United States, Graham Du Bois took positions at Howard University and Morgan College before completing her BA and master's at Oberlin College in Ohio. Her first major work was the opera Tom-Tom, which premiered in Cleveland in 1932. She married W. E. B. Du Bois in 1951, and the couple later lived in Ghana, Tanzania and China. She won several prizes, including an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for her 1949 biography of Benjamin Banneker. This photograph of Graham Du Bois was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1946.Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam Cuerden
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Today's featured article
St George and the Dragon atop Mells War Memorial
Mells War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the village of Mells, Somerset, in south-western England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the memorial takes the form of a marble column topped by a sculpture of Saint George slaying a dragon(pictured). At the base of the column, the names of the village's war dead are inscribed on stone panels. The memorial is flanked by rubble walls in local stone, on top of which grows a yew hedge. Low stone benches protrude from the walls to allow wreaths to be laid. The memorial is one of multiple buildings and structures in Mells designed by Lutyens. The memorial was unveiled on 26 June 1921 by Brigadier-General Arthur Asquith, whose brother is commemorated on it and whose father was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for much of the war. Additional panels were fixed to the wall to commemorate the Second World War. It is a grade II* listed building and since 2015 has been part of a national collection of Lutyens's war memorials. (Full article...)
