David Graham Du Bois, 79, of Amherst, Massachusetts, retired visiting professor of Afro-American studies and journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, died January 28 at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital after a brief illness.

Born March 9, 1925, in Seattle, Washington, David grew up in African Methodist Episcopal church parsonages around the state of Indiana under the guidance of his maternal grandparents, the Rev. David A. Graham and Etta Bell Graham. 

He attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music before serving as a military officer in the armed forces during World War II. Following the war, Du Bois graduated in 1950 from Hunter College with a degree in sociology. 

In 1951, his mother, Shirley Graham, married African-American theorist and historian W.E.B. Du Bois and soon after he legally became David Graham Du Bois. 

After graduate work at the New York School of Social Work at Columbia University, Du Bois earned an M.A. in history from New York University in 1956. 

Following a year’s study in Chinese language at Peking University, Du Bois took up residence in Cairo, Egypt in 1960. He lectured in American literature at Cairo University and served as news editor of the English language daily, The Egyptian Gazette. Du Bois also was a reporter and features editor for the Middle East News and Features Service agency, an announcer and program writer for Radio Cairo’s shortwave English language transmissions to North America, and a public relations consultant to the government of Ghana under President Kwame Nkrumah. 

In 1972, Du Bois returned to the U.S. where he lectured in African-American studies at the school of criminology at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1973-1975, he was editor-in-chief of The Black Panther, the weekly newspaper of the Black Panther Party published in Oakland, California. 

In 1973, his novel “And Bid Him Sing,” was published by Rampart Press. The book was based on the experiences of African-Americans in Egypt in the period leading up to the 1967 Mideast war. 

Du Bois returned to Egypt in 1977 and made Cairo his second home. In 1983, he was appointed a visiting professor of Afro-American studies and journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he taught each spring semester until his retirement in 2001. 

While at the University of Massachusetts, he worked closely with the W.E.B. Du Bois Library where his stepfather’s papers are archived, and for the restoration of the W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. 

He was the founding president of the W.E.B. Du Bois Foundation, Inc., honoring his stepfather, a member of the management committee of the W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture located in Accra, Ghana, and a member of the Council of the China-Du Bois Study Centre located in Beijing. 

He was preceded in death by his mother, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and one brother. His surviving family resides in California.