How was W. E. B. DuBois a social/political activist? What were his views of education?

W. E. B. Du Bois was a social and political activist in
several different ways and had very pronounced views about education.  Du Bois became
especially active socially and politically after serving as a teacher of poor African
Americans in the rural south. One of his most important academic accomplishments was a
detailed study of the lives of black people living in Philadelphia at the very end of
the nineteenth century. This work, like so many of his writings, was designed not simply
to call attention to problems but to suggest solutions to
them.

As he grew older and had more personal experiences
with racism, Du Bois became an increasingly outspoken advocate of political and social
responses to racial discrimination. He also became increasingly disenchanted with the
ideas of Booker T. Washington, who had achieved great prominence by arguing that African
Americans needed to find ways to cooperate with whites and who particularly advocated
the need for practical education for black people rather than the more traditional
education in the liberal arts to which whites were exposed.  Du Bois argued, instead,
that black people should have as wide and as varied opportunities for education as
whites, depending on their individual interests and
talents.

As a scholar, journalist, editor, and political
activist, Du Bois sought to make African Americans fully equal citizens of the United
States, especially at the ballot box.  He was vigorously involved in the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He fought lynching and became
increasingly interested in improving the lives not only of African Americans but of
Africans as well. By the end of his life his thinking had become increasingly associated
with the left wing of American politics.

Regarding
education, Du Bois believed that all people should have access to the kind of learning
that best fitted their interests and capacities.  Thus he criticized people such as
Washington for forgetting

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the rule of inequality: – that of the million
black youth, some were fitted to know and some to dig; that some had the talent and
capacity of university men, and some the talent and capacity of blacksmiths; and that
true training meant neither that all should be college men nor all artisans, but that
the one should be made a missionary of culture to an untaught people, and the other a
free workman among serfs.  And to seek to make the blacksmith a scholar is almost as
silly as the more modern one of making the scholar a blacksmith; almost, but not quite. 
(The Souls of Black
Folk)

According to
Du Bois,

the
function of the Negro college . . . is clear: it must maintain the standards of popular
education, it must seek the social regeneration of the Negro, and it must help in the
solution of problems of race contact and co-operation. (The Souls of Black
Folks)

Throughout
his life, Du Bois refused to accept any limitations on the rights and opportunities that
should be available to black people, both in the United States and throughout the
world.