Discover the early years of The Crisis, part of the ProQuest NAACP Archives

In 1907, Pink Franklin, a Black sharecropper in South Carolina, was arrested under a law resembling debt servitude after trying to leave his job. When police attempted a pre-dawn arrest, a shootout occurred, resulting in the death of a white officer. Franklin was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, despite serious concerns about racial bias in jury selection and the constitutionality of the law used against him. The NAACP took up the case as its first major legal battle, with The Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP, reporting on it just a month after the organization’s founding. Editor W.E.B. Du Bois envisioned The Crisis as a vehicle for advocacy, education and cultural pride, and its coverage of Franklin’s case helped establish the magazine as a powerful voice in the civil rights movement. Thanks to sustained pressure from the NAACP and allies, Franklin’s sentence was commuted, and he was eventually paroled in 1919.

A Digital Archive That Immerses Users in History

Students and researchers can read the coverage of the Franklin case as it happened in a newly digitized archive of The Crisis available to libraries through ProQuest, from Clarivate, beginning in December 2025. The collection covers the years from 1910 to 1923, offering scholars, students and educators access to the foundational decades of a publication that helped shape the national conversation around race, culture and civil rights.

This release represents a major expansion of the long-standing partnership between ProQuest and the NAACP. Building on the NAACP Papers already available in ProQuest Digital Collections, this collection adds new context and depth to an archive that has become central to scholarship in 20th-century African American history. Now, with The Crisis joining ProQuest One Black Studies, ProQuest One History and ProQuest History Vault, institutions will have direct access to both internal NAACP records and the public-facing voice that helped define the organization’s mission.

The Genesis and Purpose of The Crisis

From the beginning, The Crisis confronted the racism, injustice and violence facing Black Americans while also highlighting their resilience, talent and achievements. Users can read Du Bois’s bold and unapologetic editorials targeting the structural inequities of the time and calling readers to organize, vote and resist.

Du Bois named the publication after James Russell Lowell’s 1845 poem The Present Crisis, a call to moral courage in the face of injustice. That legacy lives on in the magazine’s mission: to inform, to uplift and to push for a more just and equal society.

How The Crisis Showcased Culture, Creativity and Community

Between 1910 and 1923, The Crisis became a creative space as well as a political one. It published original poetry, short stories and essays from emerging Black writers and thinkers, many of whom would go on to play central roles in the Harlem Renaissance and beyond. Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset and Claude McKay were among the names featured in its early volumes, and their work helped define the voice of a generation.

But the magazine wasn’t limited to high art or intellectual commentary. It also covered education, family life, religion and local news, with regular features on Black schools, churches, businesses and communities. Its readers came from across the country, from large urban centers to rural communities, readers could see themselves reflected in its pages.

World War I brought additional focus, as The Crisis reported on the role of Black soldiers abroad and the ongoing battle for equality at home. Through this mix of coverage, the magazine helped knit together a national audience of readers who were engaged, informed and increasingly mobilized.

How The Crisis Was A Platform For Change

While The Crisis celebrated Black excellence, it also exposed the harsh realities of life in a segregated and discriminatory society. It documented lynchings and mob violence, chronicled efforts to suppress the Black vote, and highlighted unequal access to housing, healthcare, and education. This reporting played a key role in building public support for the NAACP’s campaigns, especially the push for federal anti-lynching legislation.

The magazine also called attention to larger shifts underway. It tracked the Great Migration, reported on race riots in northern cities, and captured the political awakening of a new generation. Through all of this, The Crisis remained a vital source of analysis, outrage and inspiration.

Available through ProQuest Digital Collections, ProQuest One Black Studies and ProQuest One History, The Crisis archive enhances the broader NAACP archival collection, which includes internal records, legal case files and campaign documents. Together, these resources offer scholars a more complete picture of the NAACP’s work and the broader landscape of 20th-century Black activism and cultural leadership.

Librarians may request a trial to ProQuest Digital Collections, which includes ProQuest One Black Studies and ProQuest One History to access The Crisis and to explore a wealth of curriculum-aligned content across disciplines.

The Present Crisis by James Russell Lowell

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast,
And the slave’s dark bond is broken, and the tyrant’s chains are cast,
Then we feel that a better world has been for us unsealed at last!
But, oh, what a bitter shame that a tyrant should ever reign,
When the right to be free and to be equal, is denied again.
We feel the shame of a land oppressed,
But yet we cannot see with joy,
A mother’s joy over her child,
To the voice of the trumpet clear.

Jodi Johnson

Product Marketing Manager for History and Social Change, Social Science and Performing Arts portfolios. With a profound appreciation for history and a background steeped in the arts, she fuses creativity and scholarly insight to offer compelling narratives and to delve into the historical significance behind them.