Indianapolis, Indiana (November 11, 1896 -March 27, 1977) 80 yrs

Lola Shirley Graham DuBois was a Musicologist, writer, playwright, composer, author, teacher, and Pan Africanist whose work spanned art and global liberation movements. Graham achieved a level of accomplishment rare for women of the era, long before she married DuBois. In 1932, she penned Tom-Tom, the first all-Black opera performed professionally in the U.S., which was seen by an estimated 25,000 people. She authored biographical texts about Black historical figures like the inventor George Washington Carver and the poet Phillis Wheatley — all while raising two sons as a divorced single mother. In the 1940s, Graham, a 5-foot-2 powerhouse worked tirelessly as an assistant field director for NAACP in New York City.   In 1951, Shirley Graham and W.E.B. DuBois married in New York City, New York. For the next decade, they fought many legal battles against the United States government due to  their alleged connection to the Communist Party. In 1961, the couple left the U.S. for Ghana because of anti-communist and anti-Black extremism, a move planned by Graham DuBois. She left behind her post as founding editor of the Black magazine Freedomways. Shirley Graham Du Bois speaking at UCLA 11/13/1970 – YouTube