A house in Cantonments
The Du Bois couple settled in a bungalow on First Circular Road, today the Centre.
Ghana-Net.com · Greater Accra · Cantonments
A modest bungalow on a quiet road in Cantonments, a few metres from the embassy of the country that would not renew his passport. The greatest Black intellectual of the twentieth century spent his last two years here, became a Ghanaian, died here on the eve of the March on Washington and lies buried in the garden. For decades his books rotted on the shelves. Now there are big plans and big money. This page tells you what is actually there.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Massachusetts in 1868, three years after the end of American slavery. He was the first African American to earn a PhD at Harvard, wrote The Souls of Black Folk (1903), helped found the NAACP in 1909, and organised the Pan-African Congresses that brought Africans and people of African descent together from 1919 onward.
Manchester, 1945. At the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester, the elderly Du Bois presided while two younger men did much of the organising: George Padmore and a Gold Coast student called Kwame Nkrumah. Sixteen years later, Nkrumah was president of an independent Ghana and invited his old mentor to come and live there.
In October 1961, aged 93, Du Bois and his wife, the writer and composer Shirley Graham Du Bois, moved to Accra. Nkrumah had asked him to direct the Encyclopedia Africana, a great reference work on Africa written from an African point of view. Before leaving, Du Bois joined the Communist Party of the United States: a final act of defiance after years of being hounded by his own government during the McCarthy era.
The Du Bois couple settled in a bungalow on First Circular Road, today the Centre.
When the US embassy refused to renew his passport, Du Bois became a citizen of Ghana.
He did not live to finish it. The project continued long after him as the Encyclopaedia Africana.
Du Bois died in the house in Cantonments on 27 August 1963, aged 95. The next day, in Washington, a quarter of a million people gathered for the March on Washington, and the crowd was told that the man who had started the fight for Black civil rights half a century earlier had died the night before in Africa.
Ghana gave him a state funeral, and he was buried beside Christiansborg Castle, then the seat of government, where the ashes of his fellow Pan-Africanist George Padmore had been laid in 1959.
Moved, twenty-two years later. In 1985 his remains were taken from the castle and reburied at his old home, which became the memorial centre. Shirley Graham Du Bois, who died in 1977, rests beside him.
The W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture was commissioned on 22 June 1985 by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, then Ghana's head of state. It was meant to be a research centre, a museum and a gathering place for the diaspora.
For most of the following decades it was underfunded. The Du Bois Museum Foundation itself lists what needs rescuing: the deteriorated bungalow, around 1,500 damaged books and papers from his personal library, and his academic gowns and fabrics. It has also appealed for the return of Du Bois's original belongings, furniture, personal items and documents, that have left the house over the years.
The W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation, founded in 2019 as a non-profit in the United States and Ghana, was entrusted by the government with managing the Centre. On 22 June 2025 it marked the Centre's 40th anniversary with the Ministry of Tourism and the J.J. Rawlings Foundation.
The rooms he lived and worked in, with his personal effects, photographs, archives and academic awards.
Part of the books he brought to Ghana: the working library of a scholar, and the part of the collection most in need of rescue.
The grave of W.E.B. Du Bois and the ashes of Shirley Graham Du Bois, in a shrine in the grounds.
Simple rooms and a seminar hall named after Garvey, the Jamaican who never set foot in Africa, plus a small craft market in the grounds.
In September 2023 the government of Ghana signed an agreement with the Du Bois Museum Foundation to redevelop the Centre into a Pan-African museum complex, and the agreement was revised on 14 January 2026. The published plan keeps the restored bungalow and adds a memorial pavilion and a new institute building with galleries, a library, research rooms and an event hall. A design by Adjaye Associates, the firm of Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, was announced.
The US-based Mellon Foundation granted the foundation US$5 million for the first phase, announced in February 2024. The Library of Congress has been named as a partner in rescuing the damaged books.
Our position. Ghana has launched and abandoned heritage projects before. We could not confirm the current architect, a construction timetable or how much of the building work has begun. Until the bungalow is restored and the books are safe, the redevelopment is a plan, not a result. We will update this page when there is something to see.
No. 22 First Circular Road (Fifth Link Road), Cantonments, Accra, a few metres from the US Embassy and close to Ghana International School. It is a short taxi or ride-hail trip from Osu or from Accra International Airport.
Our Du Bois site lists Monday to Friday 9:00–16:00 and Saturday 10:00–15:00, closed on Sundays. During redevelopment work, hours and access can change: check before you go.
We have no verified current entrance fee. Guided tours are offered on site. For current fees and the guest house, see our pricing page or contact page.
The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, Black Star Square and Osu Castle, where Du Bois was first buried: a one-day Pan-African route through Accra.
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Our dedicated site, webduboiscentreaccra.ghana-net.com, part of Ghana-Net.com since 2015, covers the Centre in depth. The Pan-Africanists around Du Bois are on MyGhana2027.com.
The anniversary of 22 June 2025, and the appeal for the return of his belongings.
Du Bois became a Ghanaian in 1963. Others have followed.
The African leaders who carried Du Bois's ideas into politics.
The room where Africa planned its freedom, three years before Du Bois came to stay.
The Du Bois Centre is one of the most important addresses in the Pan-African world, and for most of its forty years Ghana treated it as a minor museum on a back road. His books decayed, his belongings left the house, and the bungalow itself was allowed to deteriorate. Now there is a foundation, an agreement, Mellon money and an architect's drawing. Go anyway: stand at his grave, look at the room where he worked, and ask to see the library. Then judge the redevelopment by what gets done, not by what gets announced.
Verified: 28 September 2026. The October 1961 move, the 1985 commissioning, the reburial, the 2019 foundation, the September 2023 agreement and its 14 January 2026 revision, and the restoration needs follow the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation. The Mellon grant follows the Mellon Foundation and its February 2024 announcement. The Adjaye design follows MuseumNext. The address, opening hours, collections and the 40th anniversary follow our Du Bois site. Du Bois's dates follow standard biographies. Corrections welcome and will be published in full.
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