William Edward Burghardt Du Bois joins the NAACP as director of publications and editor of The Crisis, the official organ of the NAACP. He brings with him Frank Turner as treasurer. Settled in a New York City office at 20 Vesey Street in the Evening Post Building, The Crisis is established in September 1910 and first published in November with a subtitle, “A Record for the Darker Races.” Subscriptions are $1 per year on ten cents per issue. Du Bois, the founder and first editor declares that The Crisis is to “set forth those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice…,” At ten inches high, this new publication would stand for three things: “rights irrespective of race and color…the highest ideals of American democracy…and reasonable but earnest attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals.” In a meeting of Mary White Ovington, William English Walling and Oswald Garrison Villard at Villard’s suite in his new Viennese Secessionist building, the NAACP’s magazine is named from a poem by James Russell Lowell, “The Present Crisis.” Printed by a Negro who also prints Vogue magazine, Robert N. Wood, the first issue is 20 pages and 1000 copies are printed. Sections include: “Along the Color Line”—with subsections on politics, education, social uplift, organizations, science and art; “Opinion”—correspondence; “Editorial”— NAACP coverage and topical essays; “The Burden”—civil, economic, political and literal atrocities against Negroes; and “What to Read.” An updated listing of Negroes lynched to date is included. Topics of discussion include: race, prejudice, women, politics, education, and social uplift. In the second issue, December, Du Bois includes the column, “Talks About Women” written by Mrs. John Milholland. The Crisis provides a forum for #black writers, scholars and artists to present their works and where black issues can be examined with editorial freedom. The first subscriber is George Wesley Blount of Hampton, VA.
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