W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture

The W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture is a memorial, research facility and museum in the Cantonments area of Accra. It occupies the former residence of W.E.B. Du Bois, the African-American historian and pan-Africanist who became a Ghanaian citizen in the early 1960s and lived here at the invitation of President Kwame Nkrumah while compiling the Encyclopedia Africana. He died at the house on 27 August 1963. The Centre opened to the public on 22 June 1985 and was named a national memorial in November that year.

For a visitor, the site is essentially two things in one: a small museum and a memorial. The museum holds memorabilia, photographs, archives and academic awards, along with part of Du Bois's personal library and a collection of his works made available to researchers. An adjacent shrine or mausoleum shelters his grave and the ashes of his second wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois. The grounds also include an open-air theatre used for seminars, lectures, workshops and cultural events, a seminar hall, the "Marcus Garvey" guest house, gardens, and a small craft market selling locally made crafts and fresh produce. Guided tours are available.

The Centre sits on First Circular Road in Cantonments, a few metres from the US Embassy and close to Ghana International School. Addresses appear in more than one form in the sources — No. 22 First Circular Road (Fifth Link Road) and 1, Circular Road, Cantonments — so it is worth confirming the exact entrance before travelling.

Practical details are limited and should be checked ahead of a visit. One community guide lists opening hours as Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and Saturday, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, closed on Sundays; this is not confirmed by the operator's own site. The Centre is managed by the W.E.B. Du Bois Museum Foundation, which was established in 2019 in the USA and 2021 in Ghana, under a Government of Ghana agreement signed on 20 September 2021 to redevelop the site. In 2024 the Mellon Foundation announced a US$5 million grant for Phase 1. Because redevelopment is under way, some facilities or access arrangements may change.