She converted
Tom-Tom into a full opera in 1932, and it premiered in
Cleveland, Ohio, commissioned by the Stadium Opera Company.
Tom Tom featured an all-Black cast and orchestra, structured in three acts; act one taking place in an Indigenous African tribe, act two portraying an American slave plantation, and the final act taking place in 1920s
Harlem. The music features elements of blues and spirituals, as well as jazz with elements of opera. The score of this opera was considered lost and has not been performed since its premiere until it was rediscovered in 2001 at Harvard University. Graham briefly worked at the
Federal Theatre Project before it was shut down in 1939 by a group of anti-communists.
Elizabeth Dilling – a white-supremacist and staunch anti-communist – as well as Senator
Robert Rice Reynolds, a Nazi sympathizer and anti-semite, sought to defund the Federal Theatre Project. The Federal Theatre Project eventually was defunded as a result of this anti-communist and racist rhetoric. From 1940 to 1942, Graham worked at the
Phillis Wheatley Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in
Indianapolis, Indiana, where she focused on establishing a theatre program and then became the director of the YMCA-USO group in
Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The YWCA supported the Federal Anti-Lynching Law. However, Elizabeth Dilling and anti-communist and white-supremacist groups had claimed that YWCA was a "Communist-front organizations controlled by Jews" and attacked the organization's support for equal rights for Black peoples. Dilling's publication of "
Red Channels" ultimately launched anti-communist backlash against Graham Du Bois, resulting in her work being pulled from libraries and censored. In the late 1940s, Graham became a member of
Sojourners for Truth and Justicean African-American organization working for global women's liberation. During her first visit to China in 1959, Graham Du Bois, alongside her husband W. E. B. Du Bois, was commemorated in China for their activism and commitment to Black liberation, as well as to liberation of all people of color across the globe. The
Chinese Communist Party in 1959 commemorated W. E. B. Du Bois by publishing his book
The Soul of Black Folk in Chinese languages. Graham Du Bois devoted her time in China to the women's struggle and sought to bridge ties between the proletarian struggle in China with the struggle of Black Americans. The ''
People's Daily'' recognized her as a member of the
World Peace Council and of the national committee for the Association of American-Soviet Friendship. In 1958, Graham Du Bois and her husband visited Ghana, where she spoke at the
All-African Peoples' Conference (AAPC), an event held by 62 African National Liberation organizations where she delivered a speech titled "The Future of All-Africa lies in Socialism" where she stated "Africa, ancient Africa, has been called by the world and has lifted up her hands! Africa has no choice between private capitalism and socialism. The whole world, including capitalist countries, is moving toward socialism, inevitably, inexorably. You can choose between blocs of military alliance, you can choose between groups of political union; you cannot choose between socialism and private capitalism because private capitalism is doomed." In 1960 the Du Boises attended a ceremony in the Republic of Ghana honoring
Kwame Nkrumah as the first president of the newly liberated country. Graham Du Bois and W. E. B. Du Bois later became citizens of Ghana in 1961. Graham Du Bois attended the Second Summit of the
Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Cairo in 1964 and consulted with
Malcolm X on the efforts of the
Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) to get support for the issues inside the US among heads of state, the UN and national liberation movements. Graham Du Bois announced the start of a course on television screenwriting in
Accra to create a group of writers for Ghana Television. Living in Ghana in 1961, Graham Du Bois and her husband
renounced their U.S. citizenship. In 1967, she was forced to leave Ghana soon after the 1966 military-led
coup d'état, and moved to
Cairo, Egypt, where her surviving son David was working as a journalist. There she continued writing, studied Arabic and become a supporter of
Afrocentrism. Later she moved to China again in the midst of the
Cultural Revolution. During this time, Graham Du Bois sided with the Chinese communists in the
Sino-Soviet split. She had praised China's music programs in Shanghai and she joined the
Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers. Graham Du Bois spent time in
people's communes and with the
Red Guards. She gave talks at Yale and UCLA in 1970, where she was able to speak on imperialism, capitalism and colonialism and her experiences in countries undergoing socialist construction, such as China and Vietnam. She also gave W. E. B. Du Bois' writings to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She produced a movie in China called
Women of the New China in 1974. Shirley Graham Du Bois died in Beijing, China, in 1977, where she is buried in the
Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. Her funeral was attended by many important political figures in China, including Cheng Yonggui,
Deng Yingchao, and
Hua Guofeng, where they honored her as a hero for her internationalism and selflessness. The Communist Party Chairman lay a memorial wreath in honor of Graham Du Bois, as did the embassies of Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia. ==Death==