The Crisis

The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, William Stanley Braithwaite, and Mary Dunlop Maclean. The Crisis has been in continuous print since 1910, and it is the oldest Black-oriented magazine in the world. Today, The Crisis is "a quarterly journal of civil rights, history, politics and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color."

The original title of the magazine was The CRISIS: A Record of The Darker Races. The magazine's name was inspired by James Russell Lowell's 1845 poem, "The Present Crisis". The suggestion to name the magazine after the poem came from one of the NAACP co-founders and noted white abolitionist Mary White Ovington. The first issue was typed and arranged by NAACP secretary Richetta Randolph Wallace.

As the founding editor of The Crisis, Du Bois proclaimed his intentions in his first editorial:

The object of this publication is to set forth those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people. It takes its name from the fact that the editors believe that this is a critical time in the history of the advancement of men. ...Finally, its editorial page will stand for the rights of men, irrespective of color or race, for the highest ideals of American democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempts to gain these rights and realize these ideals." (The Crisis, November 1910, 10)

Although The Crisis was officially an organ of the NAACP, Du Bois had a large degree of control over the periodical's expressed opinion. Du Bois wrote in Dusk of Dawn (1940) that he intended for The Crisis to represent his personal opinions:

I determine to make the opinion of the Crisis a personal opinion; because, as I argued, no organization can express definite and clear cut opinions... the Crisis would state openly the opinion of its editor, so long, of course, as that opinion was in general agreement with that of the organization.

The NAACP was founded in response to the Springfield Race Riots of Illinois in 1908, calling attention to the injustices that the black community was subjected to. After this riot, William Walling composed an article in the newspaper, prompting his audience to fight racism in a united fashion. Oswald Villard responded to Walling's article in one of his own titled "The Call", an article welcoming individuals to attend a national meeting dedicated to intersectional justice for all citizens despite race. There were 60 individuals that attended the call, seven of them were persons of color, including Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, and W. E. B. Du Bois. This meeting and signing of the call led to the formation of the NAACP in 1909.

The NAACP was largely recognized as a grassroots foundation, as it relied on the surrounding to community to sell subscriptions to the magazine, The Crisis. In its first year, the journal had a monthly circulation of 1,000. Ten years later, by 1918, it had more than 100,000 readers. It also grew in size, beginning at 20 pages and rising to as many as 68 pages; and in price, beginning at 10 cents per issue and later increasing to 15 cents. The Crisis would go on to become incredibly influential during the 1910s and 1920s and would take a large role in the Harlem Renaissance literature movement.^{[citation needed]}