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W.E.B. Du Bois was editor of The Crisis. According to his biography on Britannica, Du Bois authorized the magazine of opinion platform where he could get his theories and research across to a great number of individuals in the country. The Crisis was a magazine that could reach many African Americans. In the monthly publications, Du Bois gathered Black support for NAACP principles, plans, conferences, and criticism for the lack of civil rights.
Du Bois made the journal open to conversations on various matters associated with colour relations, Black cultural and human life, and Black religion and unrecognized literature work. The magazine composed a panel for various representations of the complete image and performance of African intellectual and cultural life. The magazine was a window of and to Black America. In 1934, Du Bois left the NAACP board and the magazine The Crisis as a result of his new support regarding an African American nationalist policy that operated in contradiction to the NAACP’s promise to integrate.
Throughout the journey of his life, as explained by History, Du Bois saw the progress of Black literature and art—constantly inspiring and encouraging bookworms to see the value and charm in Blackness. This was seen frequently in the published entries of Phylon, Atlanta University’s journal of society and culture, which was also founded by Du Bois after his resignation from the NAACP.
Du Bois’s main accomplishment of the period was The Souls of Black Folk. In his writing, Du Bois expressed the goal of justice in the political economy to defeat workplace discrimination, be accepted into society with laws that protected them equally as Whites and receive opportunities that allowed them to succeed in life. By examining the hardship and suffering of Black labourers, Du Bois attempted to reveal the historical, real-time, and psychological circumstances that formed the economic situations of African Americans from remodelling into the age of modernity. Many of Du Bois’s essays are a true analysis of the laissez-faire principle of economics, or, to be more precise, of implementing that concept in a community denied its constitutional and civil rights.
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Du Bois became a member of the Council on African Affairs, where he held the position of the African Aid Committee and was politically engaged and supportive of the opening effort of the African National Congress of South Africa in opposition to apartheid. The committee was established in London mid-1930s by Max Yergan and Paul Robeson to promote the opposition to colonization while bringing light to the issue in society. During the postwar period, the organization faced allegations of Communist domination and lost numerous followers; it was later discontinued entirely in 1955.
After connecting the pieces of country independence and anti-racism to the future of a more friendly weapons advanced world, Du Bois aided in the planning of the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace in March 1949 and was engaged in arranging its conferences in Paris and Mexico City later in the year. He was also present at the Moscow convention in August. After the formation of the Peace Information Center in 1950, Du Bois was appointed to head Advisory Council. The organization supported and encouraged the Stockholm Peace Appeal that asked for outlawing atomic weaponry, stating that its use is a crime against humanity and is commanding global control. Du Bois acquired the appointment of New York’s Progressive Party to work for the U.S. Senate on the principles of “Peace and Civil Rights,’’ however, he lost the seat.
Du Bois was very engaged in Pan-Africanism and troubled with the situations of African-descended individuals around the world. At the beginning of the 1900s, Du Bois was a member of the First Pan-African Conference held in London and was named vice president of the movement. Du Bois later published the “Address to the Nations of the World,” calling for better treatment for African individuals everywhere. The Niagara Movement, also initiated by Du Bois and other scholars, was composed of a “pan-African department” to promote the beauty in Black and gain more awareness of barriers that blocked African Americans from success and made them live in hardships.
Du Bois established a range of Pan-African parliaments throughout the world in 1919, 1921, 1923, and 1927. The committees constituted scholars from Africa, the West Indies, as well as the United States. Although declarations denouncing colonialism and asking for the freedom of the oppression of racialized groups of Africans were legislated, little effort was taken.
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Du Bois’ research and published papers have been necessary for Africana Critical Theory and inspired a multitude of intellects in this tradition. Du Bois’ theory was a focal point for some of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., among numerous additional thinkers who approved of it deeply for its dedication to the truth about African-American struggles and history.
Article Author: Fariah Sandhu
Article Editors: Victoria Huang, Stephanie Sahadeo