SHIRLEY GRAHAM DU BOIS, 1896-1977

Shirley (Graham) Du Bois was born November 11th in Indianapolis, Indiana; this much is known. The exact year of her birth, however, has been uncertain. At various times in her life, she asserted the year to be 1896, 1899, 1902, 1904, 1906, and 1907. Gerald Horne in his biography, Race Woman, states "she was born Lola Shirley Graham on 11 November 1896, but at points in her life she shaved as much as ten years from her true age (38)."

Her father, Rev. David A. Graham, was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church where her mother, Elizabeth Etta (Bell) Graham, was also active. DAG and EBG were married November 21, 1895, following the death of his first wife, Lorena Mason. While references in the collection are often elusive and contradictory, it is most likely that DAG had three sons with LMG, and five children with EBG: Lola (Shirley), David A.(born 1900), Lorenz B. (born 1902), Aurelius R.("William," born 1907), and Orval B. (born 1913?). DAG had assignments in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit, Tennessee, Colorado Springs, Louisiana, Spokane, and Seattle before being appointed President of Monrovia College in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1926. Upon his return to the United States in ca. 1930, he and EBG lived in Indiana, Michigan, and Minnesota, among other places. A deeply religious man, he was also somewhat of a firebrand as a minister; his sermons were often political in nature and touched on such topics as the N.A.A.C.P. and the struggle for civil rights. His outspoken manner may have contributed to his being required to move so often throughout his ministerial career. A brother-in-law, Bishop W. Sampson Brooks, was a prominent figure in the A.M.E. Church.

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