William Edward Burghardt was born on  February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, MA by Alfred Dubois his father and his mother Mary Silvina Dubois and he was the only child. He was not born into slavery and his parents were wealthy. Later he went to college at Harvard University, Humboldt University of Berlin, and Fisk University and when he went to Humboldt and Harvard he was the first African American to earn a Doctorate degree in scientology. What he did that impacted every day lives of the united states is that he helped with people that was struggling with education and inspired people to do better in every day life. On  August 27, 1963 at age 95 in Accra, Ghana he died and it impacted the whole country because of the inspiration he had on the whole country.