Amy Helene Kirschke and Phillip Luke Sinitiere, editors. Protest and Propaganda: W. E. B. Du Bois, The Crisis, and American History.

Abstract

The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races was the monthly journal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which began publication in 1910 and continues in print to this day. Its first editor was the renowned academic, intellectual, and activist W. E. B. Du Bois who helped to set the tone of the journal and the NAACP in its formative years. His editorship of The Crisis covered almost a quarter of a century (1910–1934), and this edited collection contends that Du Bois's work in this area has never been given the academic analysis or popular credit that it deserves. Indeed the title of the volume suggests that The Crisis is a milestone in American intellectual thought and cultural activism. While Du Bois has been the subject of biographies (as well as many autobiographies) the authors assert that The Crisis was the apotheosis of Du Boisian thought and activism: blending philosophy, politics, art, poetry, and culture into a sharp attack on American society and racism at the beginning of the twentieth century. As Phillip Luke Sinitiere says, “The Crisis remains a largely unmined archive for studying Du Bois's impressions and opinions about American politics and culture” (p. 190). Indeed this may be due to its attachment to the NAACP which, until recently, had not been focused upon with the historical respect it deserved. In short, it is a period of Du Bois's life that requires more attention and this book, with its ten compelling chapters, does this with great success.