Five Editorials selected from The Crisis
September 1917
The World Last Month
These are days of confusion and contradiction.
—Russia reacts from her ecstasy of last spring and retreats spent and
demoralized. Will the blood and iron methods of Kerensky be able to
reinvigorate her?
—The new German Chancellor Michaelis offers peace terms which no one can
or will accept.
—The Great War drags on indefinitely.
—Congress keeps America from doing her bit.
—In the name of world democracy we land black soldiers in France to fight for
our white allies, while white soldiers in East St. Louis kill black Americans for
daring to compete in the world of labor with their white fellowmen.
—China seesaws again from a monarchy to a republic and by her declaration
of war adds to the world’s embroilment.
—Out of all this chaos and confusion calm and readjustment must finally
come. But no man can guess when or how.
East St. Louis
Let no one fear that in the
economic development of the
American Negro East St.
Louis is not a bubble. Its
significance is simply the shame of
American democracy and the utter impotence of its justice. Nevertheless, despite this pogrom, engineered
by Gompers and his Trade Unions,
the demand for Negro labor continues
and will continue. Negro labor continues
to come North and ought to
come North. It will find work at
higher wages than the slave South
ever paid and ever will pay, and, despite
the Trade Unions and the murderers
whom they cover and defend,
economic freedom for the American
Negro is written in the stars. East
St. Louis, Chester and Youngstown
are simply the pools of blood through
which we must march, but march we
will.
| White people are not in business for their health. We should be in business for our health and for the health of the world. |
|
Today the way is open for co-operation among 12,000,000 people on a scale such as we have never dreamed. What we can do is shown in little things. Ten thousand of us marched the other day in New York City. Everybody said it could not be done. The ways were lined with rabbits, afraid even to walk for freedom, and yet, solemnly and simply, the Negroes of New York told the other citizens of New York their grief and resentment. That is but a little thing. We can do infinitely more. We can organize for industrial co-operation and we can begin with co-operation in distribution. In every large city where 10,000 or more Negroes live, the business of buying groceries, food, clothing and fuel can, by a single determined effort, be put into the hands of colored people. This kind of distribution has been successful all over the world. Little is said about it because the leeches that have fattened on retail trade are too powerful with the newspapers. Distribution of the necessities of life can be easily done with a tremendous saving to the people and the employment of colored men and women. The only thing necessary is for us to start; and to start we simply require that the same spirit of devotion and sacrifice, coupled with brains and training, that has sent young men and women to the ministry and the Y.M. and Y.W.C.A. work should be turned now among us Negroes and be put into business.
White people are not in business for their health. We should be in business for our health and for the health of the world.
Awake America| Wherever the American flag floats today, black hands have helped to plant it. | |
To stop lynching and mob violence.
To stop disfranchisement for race and sex.
To abolish Jim Crow cars.
To resist the attempt to establish an American ghetto.
To stop race discrimination in Trade Unions, in Civil Service, in places of public accommodation, and in the Public School.
To secure Justice for all men in the courts.
To insist that individual desert and ability shall be the test of real American manhood and not adventitious differences of race or color or descent.
| The shadow of the Black Bastille [of prejudice] lies always across the path of us Americans. Turn where we will we cannot escape its gloom. | |
Awake! Put on thy strength, America—put on thy beautiful robes. Become not a bye word and jest among the nations by the hypocrisy of your word and contradiction of your deeds. Russia has abolished the ghetto—shall we restore it? India is overthrowing caste—shall we upbuild it? China is establishing democracy—shall we strengthen our Southern oligarchy?
In five wars and now the sixth we black men have fought for your freedom and honor. Wherever the American flag floats today, black hands have helped to plant it. American Religion, American Industry, American Literature, American Music and American Art are as much the gift of the American Negro as of the American white man. This is as much our country as yours, and as much the world’s as ours. We Americans, black and white, are the servants of all mankind and ministering to a greater, fairer heaven. Let us be true to our mission. No land that loves to lynch "n––––rs" can lead the hosts of Almighty God.
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| Frank Waltz cover of The Crisis, September 1917 |
The Black Bastille
There is in Paris a place where once a notorious prison stood—the Bastille. For many years from the beginning of its erection in 1369, it lowered, a stronghold of cruelty and despotism. But on one marvelous fourteenth of July, 1789, it was stormed by a furious and desperate populace, and not a stone is left to indicate what once had been. Instead, now on that spot, a lofty column, the Column of July, rears skyward its slender, beautiful length, a carven oriflamme of that liberty, fraternity and equality which is in verity the pride of France.
And so the Bastille perished. Moreover the key was brought to America and tendered by Lafayette to General Washington in gracious recognition by one democracy of another. But here the similarity between the two countries ceases. For since the fall of the French stronghold there has been building in this democracy a tower, a fortress fully as iniquitous in its purpose as the ill-famed Bastille of old. Throughout the length and breadth of this land, yes, in the Nation's very capital, are men bent on putting the crowning touch of infamy to this new and monstrous superstructure—the Black Bastille of Prejudice. How many victims have been thrust into its pitiless confines! Into it have gone the ideals of the Pilgrim Fathers, the dreams of the Abolitionists and President Lincoln, and during the week before the fourteenth of July—the very anniversary of the fall of its stone and mortar prototype—the democracy of a nation! The shadow of the Black Bastille lies always across the path of us Americans. Turn where we will we cannot escape its gloom. In those old unhappy, far-off days the French populace demolished their Bastille's frowning reality with every conceivable weapon, stones, maces, pickaxes, halberds and their poor naked hands. America’s course must be as theirs. We have no choice but to bring to the annihilation of this structure—so insubstantial and yet so real our all—determination, effort—grim, unceasing—money, time, tears, our naked bleeding hearts. 
The NAACP’s Silent Parade
Introduction & Table of Contents
1917 Suite: A Month, a Year, a Term of Liberty
Introduction & Cross-issue Table of Contents