‘W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause’ To Screen In London
After its U.S. broadcast debut and theatrical roadshow tour, W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause, the new feature documentary by filmmaker Rita Coburn (Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands) on the life and legacy of the legendary writer W.E.B. Du Bois, is heading to the UK. Check out a trailer for the film above.
The film will screen on Sunday, October 18, 2026, at the Charlotte Street Hotel in London. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Coburn and actor Jeffrey Wright, who narrates Du Bois’ work in the film.
Directed, written, and produced by Coburn, W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause chronicles the extraordinary life and enduring legacy of Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, the scholar, historian, sociologist, author, activist, and Pan-Africanist whose work helped shape modern civil rights thought.
Narrated by Viola Davis, the two-hour documentary explores Du Bois’ writing through dramatic readings by Common, Courtney B. Vance, and Wright. The readings are stitched together with rare archival footage, photographs, and historical documents.
“I’m not prouder of any other piece that I’ve been a part of than I am to be a part of this,” Wright said of the film.
Born in 1868, just five years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Du Bois lived through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, two World Wars, and the dawn of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The documentary follows his journey from groundbreaking academic achievement (Du Bois was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard) to the founding of the NAACP, his international Pan-African work, and his death in Ghana in 1963, on the eve of the March on Washington.
The documentary features commentary from leading historians, scholars, and cultural voices, including Raymond Arsenault, Karida Brown, Eric Foner, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Nikole Hannah-Jones, David Levering Lewis, and Imani Perry.
Coburn’s previous documentaries include Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise and Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands.
W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With A Cause screened on PBS in the U.S. in May and has since toured North America.
