With help from the Verizon Foundation, the W.E.B. Du Bois Center and the Department of Special Collections (SCUA) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is taking on the ambitious goal of digitizing one of the most extraordinary collections documenting the 20^th century African American experience: the Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois Online will bring the insights of one of the great intellectuals and activists of the early Civil Rights movement to an avid audience throughout Massachusetts and worldwide.  Offering a unique and compelling suite of resources, this site will assist educators in engaging students in discussions about some of the most vexing, but important, issues in recent American history, from the struggle for civic equality and social justice to the challenges and fundamental responsibilities of citizenship in a diverse and complex nation.