Yolande was the daughter of social reformer W.E.B. DuBois and his wife Nina Gomer. She attended the Bedales School, a British Preparatory Academy, followed by Fisk University from which she graduated in 1924 with a degree in fine arts. Much was expected of her as the only surviving child of DuBois, who sent her stern letters about proper behavior and discipline. She is said to have loved swing pioneer Jimmy Lunceford, but this was not approved. Instead she married the considered more suitable Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen in a huge Harlem wedding on April 9, 1928. By summer they had separated and Yolande was treated for illness. She moved to Baltimore and worked as a teacher. She married a second time to football player Arnette Franklin Williams and had a daughter Du Bois Williams before divorcing in 1936. W.E.B. DuBois was still living at age 93 when Yolande died in 1961, thus outliving both of his children. He attended the small funeral and had become increasingly severely disillusioned with the United States. Shortly afterwards he was invited to Ghana to become editor of the Encyclopedia Africana, and spent his final two years there. Yolande’s grave was not marked and remained that way for 50 years until a headstone was dedicated in a ceremony in 2014, at which time the W.E.B. Du Bois National Historic Site’s new interpretive trail was also dedicated in Great Barrington.
Yolande was the daughter of social reformer W.E.B. DuBois and his wife Nina Gomer. She attended the Bedales School, a British Preparatory Academy, followed by Fisk University from which she graduated in 1924 with a degree in fine arts. Much was expected of her as the only surviving child of DuBois, who sent her stern letters about proper behavior and discipline. She is said to have loved swing pioneer Jimmy Lunceford, but this was not approved. Instead she married the considered more suitable Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen in a huge Harlem wedding on April 9, 1928. By summer they had separated and Yolande was treated for illness. She moved to Baltimore and worked as a teacher. She married a second time to football player Arnette Franklin Williams and had a daughter Du Bois Williams before divorcing in 1936. W.E.B. DuBois was still living at age 93 when Yolande died in 1961, thus outliving both of his children. He attended the small funeral and had become increasingly severely disillusioned with the United States. Shortly afterwards he was invited to Ghana to become editor of the Encyclopedia Africana, and spent his final two years there. Yolande’s grave was not marked and remained that way for 50 years until a headstone was dedicated in a ceremony in 2014, at which time the W.E.B. Du Bois National Historic Site’s new interpretive trail was also dedicated in Great Barrington.
Family Members
Siblings
