Crisis - May 1919
About this book
The May 1919 issue of The Crisis stands as one of the most explosive and historically significant editions of the NAACP magazine, serving as a direct indictment of American racism at the end of World War I.
That issue featured W. E. B. Du Bois's landmark and militant editorial titled Returning Soldiers, in which he challenged the hypocrisy of Black veterans fighting for democracy abroad only to face brutal segregation and lynchings back home, famously declaring that they were returning from the fight ready to fight for their own rights in America.
Alongside this call to action, the May 1919 issue famously exposed the secret August 1918 Linard memo, a classified document proving that the U.S. military had actively pressured the French government to enforce a French version of Jim Crow against Black American troops.
By publishing the memo, Du Bois revealed the lengths to which the American government went to export racial oppression and safeguard white supremacy internationally, making the issue a powerful catalyst for the post-WWI civil rights movement.
