Crisis, The
First published in November 1910 as the official
organ of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD-
VANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP), The
Crisis magazine was meant to serve as the “record
of the darker races.” W. E. B. DUBOIS, its first edi-
tor, retained this position until 1934. Ten years
later he returned to edit the magazine for another
four years, until 1948. More than 90 years after
its beginning, The Crisis is still in publication,
making it one of the oldest black periodicals in
America. In its present status, it is legally separate
from and may not represent the official position
of the NAACP.
The title of the magazine was taken from James
Russell Lowell’s 1844 poem “The Present Crisis.”
Though the title emerged from a casual conversa-
tion among people who would be involved in the
magazine’s early days, Lowell’s beginning line—
“When a deed is done for Freedom”—suggests the
early mission of the magazine, which was to be an
articulate vehicle for civil rights. According to Du-
Bois, it succeeded in those early days because of
its attention to news published under the heading
“Along the Color Line,” “blazing editorials” that ir-
ritated friends and alarmed foes, and an increas-
ing number of pictures, many in color, of African
Americans. In the early days in white papers, pic-
tures of African Americans usually appeared only
when alleged wrongdoing was charged. By 1916,
The Crisis was self-supporting. Circulation grew
faster than the membership rolls of the NAACP.
From the beginning, DuBois’s agenda was al-
ways political; he had help in this area from JAMES
WELDON JOHNSON and WALTER WHITE, in particu-
lar. Early on, the magazine was used to promote the
literary talents of many young, unrecognized, and
unsung black writers. JESSIE FAUSET became literary
editor in 1919. In that role until 1926, she was re-
sponsible for bringing the pages of The Crisis to life
with the works of artists who would become the
outstanding talents of the HARLEM RENAISSANCE.
For example, the first published poem by 19-year-
old LANGSTON HUGHES, “The Negro Speaks of Riv-
ers,” appeared in the magazine in 1921. Among
the luminaries to seek and be sought for the pages
of The Crisis were JEAN TOOMER, CLAUDE MCKAY,
ARNA BONTEMPS, and COUNTEE CULLEN.
In 1924, The Crisis initiated a contest—with the
Amy Einstein Spingarn Prizes in Literature and
Art—to attract new talent and foster the growth of
the burgeoning black arts in Harlem. During the
first half of the 20th century, The Crisis, with its
rich literary offerings in poetry, fiction, and plays,
and its assorted personal, literary, cultural, and
social essays, was a periodical of immense influ-
ence; it was an integral component of the African
American’s educational development.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bontemps, Arna. ed. The Harlem Renaissance Re-
membered. New York: Dodd, Meade, 1972.
Wilson, Sondra Kathryn, ed. The Crisis Reader: Sto-
ries, Poetry, and Essays from the N.A.A.C.P’s Crisis
Magazine. New York: Modern Library, 1999.
Margaret WhittCullen, Countee (1903–1946)
Countee Cullen was born Countee Leroy Porter, but
his birthplace is uncertain. Though Ida Mae Cul-
len, his widow, claimed he was born in Louisville,
Kentucky, Cullen sometimes claimed New York as
his birthplace. (Other sources claim his birthplace
was Baltimore.) At age 15, Cullen was adopted by
the Reverend and Mrs. Frederick A. Cullen of the
Salem Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem. In
his adoptive father’s library, Cullen began his early
study of books and literature, a study that would
serve him well in his career as one of the most
prominent poets of the HARLEM RENAISSANCE. In
1918, he enrolled at DeWitt Clinton High School,
a predominantly white boys’ school in New York,
where he eventually became the editor of Magpie,
the school’s literary magazine. It was at Dewitt
Clinton that Cullen found a passion for the 19th-
century English poet John Keats. The profound
impact Keats had on Cullen as a poet was voiced by
ARNA BONTEMPS years later in The Harlem Renais-
sance Remembered. When the two first met, Cullen
told him “that John Keats was his god.”126 Crisis, The