The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races — The Voice of Black America’s Early Freedom Struggle

The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races stands as one of the most influential publications in African American history. Founded in 1910 as the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Crisis became a powerful vehicle for truth-telling, advocacy, and cultural pride at a time when Black Americans faced widespread violence, legal segregation, and systematic exclusion from public life.

Founding and Editorial Leadership

Scholar, activist, and founding editor of The Crisis*,
whose leadership shaped the intellectual direction
of the early civil rights movement.*

Under the founding editorship of W. E. B. Du Bois, the magazine combined journalism, art, photography, literature, and political commentary to challenge racist narratives and demand justice. It was not merely a publication—it was a movement in print.

The Crisis was established in November 1910, just one year after the founding of the NAACP. The title itself reflected Du Bois’s belief that the United States was facing a moral and democratic crisis over race relations. As editor from 1910 to 1934, Du Bois shaped the magazine into a fearless voice against injustice.

Du Bois, already a renowned scholar and activist, used The Crisis to document lynchings, expose racial violence, critique discriminatory laws, and mobilize public opinion. He famously declared that the magazine existed to “set forth those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice.”

By 1918, The Crisis had grown to a circulation of over 100,000 readers, making it one of the most widely read African American periodicals in the nation.

Purpose and Mission

The core mission of The Crisis was twofold:

1. To promote a progressive, dignified image of African American life
2. To call for social justice, civil rights, and an end to racial violence

At a time when mainstream media routinely portrayed Black Americans through degrading stereotypes—or erased them entirely—The Crisis published photographs of Black professionals, soldiers, students, artists, and families. These images directly countered racist propaganda and asserted Black humanity and excellence.

The magazine also served as a national record of racial injustice. It printed detailed reports on lynchings, race riots, voter suppression, and segregation, often naming victims and perpetrators when other outlets would not.

Advocacy Against Violence and Lynching

One of the most courageous roles of The Crisis was its unflinching coverage of lynching and racial terror. Du Bois understood that silence enabled violence. The magazine published statistics, editorials, and eyewitness accounts documenting the brutality inflicted on Black communities across the United States.

Issues from the 1910s—particularly during and after World War I—highlighted the contradiction of Black soldiers fighting for democracy abroad while being denied basic rights at home. The September 1918 issue, for example, confronted the racial hypocrisy of wartime America head-on.

Art, Culture, and the New Negro

Beyond political advocacy, The Crisis played a pivotal role in nurturing Black artistic expression. It published poetry, short stories, essays, and illustrations that helped lay the groundwork for what would become the Harlem Renaissance.

Writers and artists featured in The Crisis included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Jessie Redmon Fauset, who served as literary editor, was instrumental in elevating Black literature within the magazine’s pages. Special issues—such as The Christmas Crisis of 1915—blended cultural celebration with political purpose, demonstrating that joy, faith, and resistance could coexist.

Legacy and Historical Importance

The Crisis remains one of the longest-running civil rights magazines in the world and is still published today. Its early decades, however, remain its most historically significant period—when the printed page became a battleground for truth, dignity, and freedom.

The magazine helped shape national conversations on race, influenced legal and political activism, and preserved a visual and written archive of Black life in the early 20th century. It stands as a testament to the power of independent Black media and intellectual leadership.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett: A Fearless Black Journalist and Anti-Lynching Crusader

Photo: Ida B. Wells Barnett (b. July 16, 1862 – d. March 25, 1931)

Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on born July 16, 1862 and would become a fearless anti-lynching crusader and renowned African American journalist in the Americas.

IDA B. WELLS IN MEMPHIS

Wells attended Rust College and Fisk University before coming to teach in the Memphis public school system. While in Memphis, Wells wrote for the Free Speech weekly newspaper. She was also an avid diarist in her early years and Miriam DeCosta-Willis edited some of her diary writings as The Memphis Diaries of Ida B. Wells (Beacon Press, 1995). In 1891, Wells was banned from teaching with the Memphis public schools because her articles spoke out against racial injustices and more particularly the lynching epidemic.

Wells became editor of the Free Speech newspaper in Memphis and began her anti-lynching activism, specifically challenging the notion that Black men were being lynched because they raped white women. Reacting against an expose she wrote about the activities of a lynch mob, the Memphis printing offices of the Free Speech were torched and Ida was threatened with lynching. Wells fled Memphis for New York and worked on the staff of the New York Age newspaper edited by T. Thomas Fortune.

IDA B. WELLS BARNETT IN CHICAGO

Photo: Ida B. Wells Barnett's home in Bronzeville, Chicago, Illinois;
Address: 3624 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.; Year Built: 1889

In 1895, Wells married attorney and Chicago newspaper owner Ferdinard Barnett. Her political and social activism continued in Chicago. At the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, she and Frederick Douglass campaigned for the establishment of a pavilion to honor the accomplishments of Black Americans. She wrote and distributed a pamphlet entitled "Why the Colored American is Not in the World's Columbia Exposition" at the foot of the Statute of Columbia at the Corner of Cornell and Hayes Drives in Chicago. That same year Wells began writing for the Conservator, Chicago's first African American newspaper.

 

Wells is noted as one of the 25 outstanding women in Chicago's history. One of Chicago's housing projects was named in her honor. Ida B. Wells Barnett's former home in Chicago is located at 3624 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and still stands in this famed Bronzeville community. Her Chicago home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974.