about DuBois, an influential man whom she ad-
dressed as the “Dean of American Negro Artists”
(Kaplan, 518), whose influence she recognized,
and whose editorial evaluations she sought out.
Her contact with him included correspondence in
which she asked whether certain of her plays might
be of interest to Krigwa, the theater group with
which he was affiliated, and in which she agreed to
contribute to his Encyclopedia Africana“if you will
tell me what you wan[t]” (Kaplan, 374).
DuBois was active in cultural circles and was an
outspoken advocate of a race-based theater. He
used his position at The Crisisto encourage play-
wrights to create works that reflected the complex-
ity of African-American life and that explored
universal and wide-ranging social and creative is-
sues. DuBois’s recommendations became the foun-
dation for the little theater movement, a tradition
that encouraged communities to generate small
companies that were rooted in and involved the
neighborhoods in which they were based. DuBois
collaborated in 1927 with Regina Andrews, a librar-
ian at the 135th Street branch of the NEWYORK
PUBLICLIBRARY, to create the KRIGWAPLAYERS.
DuBois also sponsored annual Crisisliterary
contests that, like those held by CHARLESS. JOHN-
SON’s NATIONALURBANLEAGUEpublication Op-
portunity,recognized emerging writers, and helped to
model acceptable race literature. DuBois enlisted the
aid of leading American writers—white and black—
as well as NAACP leaders and notable public figures
who supported the organization’s efforts to foster
African-American talent. Judges included BENJAMIN
BRAWLEY,CHARLESCHESNUTT, Otelia Cromwell,
LESLIEPINCKNEYHILL,JAMESWELDONJOHNSON,
EUGENEO’NEILL,MARYWHITEOVINGTON,JOEL
SPINGARN, and H. G. Wells. Prizes were offered for
fiction, poetry, plays, and essays. Winners included
MARITABONNER,ARNABONTEMPS,ANITASCOTT
COLEMAN,COUNTEE CULLEN,RUDOLPH FISHER,
RUTHGAINES-SHELTON,LANGSTONHUGHES, and
WILLISRICHARDSON.
DuBois also pursued several intense and inti-
mate relationships with women who were central to
the Harlem Renaissance movement. Biographer
David Levering Lewis notes that when DuBois’s
wife left for Paris in the spring of 1929 to comfort
her daughter in the wake of her disastrous marriage
to Countee Cullen, DuBois began to enjoy a “social
life that was emotionally so much more rewarding”
(Lewis, 266). His “serial affairs” included a previous
“star-crossed love affair” with Jessie Fauset; rela-
tionships with ETHELRAYNANCE, the longtime
secretary at Opportunity who worked alongside
Charles S. Johnson; GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSON,
the WASHINGTON, D.C., poet and beloved, accom-
modating mentor of many writers and scholars in
the capital; Mildred Bryant Jones, a Fisk University
graduate and chair of the music department at the
Wendell Phillips High School, the leading African-
American public school in Chicago; and Virginia
Alexander, a graduate of the Woman’s Medical
College of Pennsylvania whom Lewis suggests
“might [have] become the second Mrs. DuBois and
for whom he felt a special passion and admiration”
(Lewis, 272). Colleagues continued to respect his
privacy, and DuBois’s liaisons did not jeopardize his
high public standing.
DuBois published significant works of sociol-
ogy, political critique, and fiction in the years be-
fore the Harlem Renaissance. Included among the
21 independently authored volumes and 15 edited
collections that he produced during his lifetime
were the influential study The Philadelphia Negro
(1899), the illuminating collection of essays Souls
of Black Folk(1903), a biography of John Brown,
and the novel The Quest of the Silver Fleece(1911).
His most influential work, SOULS OFBLACKFOLK
(1903), cemented his reputation as an intellectual
and as the main challenger to the accommodation-
ist philosophies of Booker T. Washington.
DuBois’s powerful evaluations of African-Amer-
ican psychological, social, economic, intellectual,
and political realities proved integral to the founding
of the NAACP, which grew out of the 1905 Niagara
meetings in Buffalo, New York. In Souls of Black Folk,
DuBois emphasized an investment in the intellectual
and political advancement of people of color. The
lasting impression of DuBois’s eloquent compilation
of essays on racial awakening, the rejuvenating purity
and power of the African-American folk, and the
need to cultivate and maintain a talented tenth ca-
pable of spearheading the race’s advancement, led to
his appointment as editor of The Crisisonce the
NAACP was established. During his tenure, circula-
tion increased one hundred fold during a 10-year pe-
riod, growing from 1,000 copies in the first printing
to some 100,000 by 1919. He resigned in 1934,DuBois, William Edward Burghardt 127