“For years, although it [Crisis] was the official organ of the NAACP, it had remained a separate, self-supporting, financial entity. But the Depression and years of resulting red ink forced Crisis in the mid-1930s to be subsumed under the NAACP. That, however, did not stop Du Bois from launching into a thought-provoking series on segregation that ran headlong into the NAACP’s declared policy to destroy Jim Crow. Du Bois worried that the Association’s tendency to immediately connote anything that was all-black as ‘inferior,’ in fact, undermined the very argument that the NAACP was making-namely, that African Americans were equal. Du Bois declared that it was not the racial composition of the schools, hospitals, or even neighborhoods that created the appalling inferior conditions that engulfed black life in America. Rather, it was the eagerness of whites to starve black institutions of resources that was at the root of the problem. The point, Du Bois continued, was not to fight for some glorious day when all-black institutions would disappear, the point was to strengthen and rely on those institutions for what they could bring to the African American community. Not surprisingly, when Crisis hit the stands, Walter White hit the roof. White wanted the next issue of Crisis to include a retraction and an unqualified statement that the NAACP was opposed to racial segregation, period. Du Bois refused, submitted his resignation, and went to teach at Atlanta University.” Carol Anderson “EYES OFF THE PRIZE: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955” Page 32
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:47:15 +0000
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