The South
Du Bois’s 90 editorials on Southern politics, governance, and the Great Migration in The Crisis (1910-1934)
The South’s refusal to think honestly about race made it a drag on American civilization. Du Bois named governors, quoted newspapers, and cited statutes. These 90 editorials are forensic journalism: documenting how disfranchisement skewed national politics, how the plantation economy persisted in new forms, and how Southern “civilization” was a euphemism for racial terror. The South in these pages is not a region but a political problem.
Southern Governance
Du Bois tracked the mechanics of one-party rule: how disfranchisement concentrated power, how poll taxes and white primaries excluded Black citizens, and how the resulting political structure warped national legislation. He argued that the South’s overrepresentation in Congress, based on a population it refused to let vote, was the foundation of the Jim Crow order.
- The South in the Saddle (1914) — disfranchisement inflates congressional power
- Southern Civilization (1916) — oligarchy preserved through lynching
- Tillman (1918) — Tillman’s death and Southern labor politics
- Blease, Vardaman, Hardwick and Company (1918) — Southern demagogues
- The Newer South (1926) — Jim Crow persists beneath the New South
Southern Press and Public Opinion
Du Bois quoted Southern newspapers at length, letting editors convict themselves. He tracked how the Southern press framed racial violence, manufactured consent for disfranchisement, and dismissed Black aspirations. The technique was deliberate: quoting the enemy let editors convict themselves in their own words.
- Southern Papers (1911) — white papers mock race issues and defend peonage
- The Newest South (1913) — interracial leaders confront race problems
- The Macon Telegraph (1920)
- The Unfortunate South (1920) — racial blindness and cultural suppression
- The Rising Truth (1921) — Southern racial terror exposed
Migration
The Great Migration as both escape and judgment. Du Bois covered why Black Southerners were leaving, what they found in the North, and what their departure revealed about the South. He encouraged migration while acknowledging its costs.
- Migration (1916) — urges migration to escape lynching
- The Migration of Negroes (1917) — a labor and rights exodus
- The Migration (1917) — Great Migration meets Northern demand
- The Flight into Egypt (1919) — the Holy Family reimagined as Black refugees
- Brothers, Come North (1920)
All Articles on The South
| Date | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1911 (Jan) | The Truth | Exposes Southern lies about Black suffrage, documenting racial disfranchisement and threats to democracy. |
| 1911 (Feb) | Education | Exposes systemic racial injustice in education, citing stark attendance, funding, and term-length disparities. |
| 1911 (Feb) | Pink Franklin | Lambastes racial injustice in Pink Franklin’s commuted sentence, exposing Southern law bowed to mob prejudice. |
| 1911 (Feb) | Separation | Argues race-based separation betrays democracy, forcing Black subordination in education, law, and public life. |
| 1911 (Feb) | Southern Papers | Scolds white Southern papers for mocking race issues and defending peonage, exposing labor exploitation and hypocrisy. |
| 1911 (Mar) | The White Primary | Shows how the white primary lets party bosses bar Black voters, disenfranchising citizens and threatening democracy. |
| 1911 (Mar) | Promotion of Prejudice | Exposes syndicated racist editorials that manufacture race prejudice across North and South and threaten democracy. |
| 1911 (Apr) | The Truth | Urges telling the full truth about race and Southern injustice, warning that silence fuels oppression. |
| 1911 (Apr) | Knowledge | Rebukes Southern "knowledge," using census data on suicide and nervous disease to expose false racial claims. |
| 1911 (Apr) | Mr. Taft | Condemns Taft’’s race policies, rejecting Southern guardianship over Black education, voting rights and justice. |
| 1911 (May) | Violations of Property Rights | Shows how race prejudice, municipal policy, wage bias and mob/legal violence violate Black property rights. |
| 1911 (May) | ‘Social Equality’ | Argues that ‘social equality’ means humanity for Black Americans, exposing Southern hypocrisy and urging education and labor. |
| 1911 (Jun) | Education | Urges national education reform, exposing how racial inequality and weak schools betray American democracy. |
| 1911 (Jun) | The Cost of Education | Shows how Black taxpayers subsidize white schooling and underfunded colored schools, exposing race and education injustice in The Crisis (1911). |
| 1912 (Jan) | Crime and Lynching | Argues in The Crisis (1912) that lynching provokes crime; stop lynching to stop crime, a humane critique grounded in Florida and vagrancy abuses. |
| 1912 (Feb) | Light | Counters the ‘child’ Negro myth, showing Phelps-Stokes-funded education reveals Black humanity beyond stereotype. |
| 1912 (Feb) | Anarchism | Argues in The Crisis (1912) that extortion by Southern officials manufactures Black crime, exposing white supremacy and harm to the poor. |
| 1912 (Mar) | Lee | Argues in The Crisis (Mar. 1912) that victory isn’t virtue; unlike other Crisis pieces, he contrasts Washington and Lee to show moral choice matters. |
| 1912 (Mar) | Virginia Christian | Shows how Virginia’s white-supremacist order denies education, produces poverty, and murders Virginia Christian. |
| 1912 (Apr) | The Servant in the South | Shows how Southern house service exploits Black labor with low pay and abuse, urging dignity, fair wages, and reform. |
| 1912 (Jun) | The Election | Defends Black support for Wilson, warns of Southern racism and disfranchisement, and urges real justice and democracy. |
| 1913 (Jan) | The Newest South | Lauds the newest South where interracial leaders openly confront race problems and denounces the old South’s racist press. |
| 1913 (Jun) | Education | Urges Americans to confront the race problem through education and hard knowledge, not cowardly denial. |
| 1914 (Jan) | Muddle | Condemns northern reformers’ cowardice and southern segregation, urging race-aware social reform and democracy. |
| 1914 (Feb) | The South in the Saddle | Exposes how Southern disfranchisement inflates Congressional power, forcing national policy and undermining democracy. |
| 1914 (Mar) | A Crusade | Urges a new abolitionist crusade for race justice and democracy, calling for mass organization and support for the NAACP. |
| 1914 (Mar) | Taxation without Representation | Exposes how Black Memphis taxpayers fund education, parks, and infrastructure yet lack representation and democratic rights. |
| 1915 (Feb) | Frank | Condemns Southern racial and religious prejudice and the legal failures that nearly led to Leo Frank’s lynching. |
| 1915 (Mar) | The Grandfather Clause | Exposes the Grandfather Clause as a racist tool undermining Black democracy, education, and labor rights. |
| 1915 (Jun) | An Open Letter | Storey, Moorfield in The Crisis (1915) argues for justice, denouncing Southern disfranchisement and school neglect of Black Americans. |
| 1916 (Mar) | The Cherokee Fires: An N.A.A.C.P. Investigation | Nash, Royal Freeman in The Crisis (1916) examines Cherokee County fires as an N.A.A.C.P. probe links them to anti-Black terror and arson. |
| 1916 (Apr) | Peonage | Condemns peonage as slavery reborn, exposing how coerced labor and lynching enforce racial domination. |
| 1916 (Apr) | Migration | Urges Black southerners to migrate North to escape lynching, gain education and labor opportunities. |
| 1916 (May) | Public Schools | Condemns Southern use of public education to uphold race and class, arguing schools must foster democracy, not servitude. |
| 1916 (May) | Public Schools | Charges Southern public schools with shaping Black servants, undermining education, democracy, and racial equality. |
| 1916 (May) | Southern Civilization | Condemns Southern oligarchy for lynching, disfranchisement, and opposing national suffrage to preserve white supremacy. |
| 1916 (Jun) | Deception | Exposes how the southern press racially deceives readers, false-equating North and South and blocking justice. |
| 1917 (Mar) | Civilization in the South | Condemns Southern culture as entwined with lynching, racist labor hierarchies, and anti-democratic barbarism. |
| 1917 (Mar) | The Tuskegee Resolutions | Denounces Tuskegee resolutions for urging Black labor to remain South while ignoring lynching and legal injustice. |
| 1917 (Apr) | The South | Chronicles Southern industrial growth, Black labor and migration, and the racial violence shaping a new, fragile order. |
| 1917 (May) | Loyalty | Rebukes Southern claims of Black disloyalty, defending Black patriotism, migration, and claims to democracy. |
| 1917 (May) | The Migration | Argues Black labor’s Great Migration meets Northern demand, exposes Southern racial hypocrisy and threats to Black freedom. |
| 1917 (May) | A Moral Void | Condemns Southern moral failure as governors ignore anti-Black lynching, praising Ohio’s pursuit of justice. |
| 1917 (Jun) | The Migration of Negroes | Documents Black migration as a labor and rights exodus driven by lynching, disfranchisement, boll weevil and low wages. |
| 1918 (Feb) | Tillman | Argues Tillman’s death signals a turn in Southern labor and race politics toward Black enfranchisement. |
| 1918 (Apr) | Blease, Vardaman, Hardwick and Company | Condemns Blease, Vardaman and Hardwick as race-haters undermining democracy and the war against despotism. |
| 1919 (Mar) | Signs from the South | Documents Southern racial violence against Black churches and schools and argues true democracy must include Black citizens. |
| 1919 (Apr) | Chicago and Its Eight Reasons | White, Walter F. in The Crisis (1919) examines Chicago riots, blaming prejudice, jobs, graft, police lapses, housing and the press. |
| 1919 (Apr) | Shillady and Texas | Castigates Texas for lynching, disenfranchisement, and racial violence that deny Blacks land, education, and democracy |
| 1919 (May) | Letters | Urges southern white women to challenge disfranchisement, Jim Crow, lynching, and racial inequality in education and labor. |
| 1919 (May) | Heroes | Honors Southern Black men and women whose nonviolent endurance demands racial dignity and freedom. |
| 1919 (Jun) | The Flight into Egypt | Reimagines the Holy Family as Black refugees, exposing racial oppression and the quest for freedom. |
| 1919 (Jun) | Radicals | Condemns Southern oligarchy’s campaign to silence Black critics, warning it threatens race equality and free speech. |
| 1920 (Jan) | Brothers, Come North | Urges Black migration North for labor, education, and democracy, condemning Southern lynching and Jim Crow. |
| 1920 (Jan) | The Macon Telegraph | Rebukes the Macon Telegraph, arguing racial injustice—lynching, disfranchisement, unequal education—drives Southern unrest. |
| 1920 (Jan) | “Our” South | Exposes the white South’s property myth that denies Black labor rights, education, and a democratic voice. |
| 1920 (Feb) | Arkansas | Exposes Arkansas insurance bias and white surveillance that punish Black wealth, voting and anti-lynching activism. |
| 1920 (Feb) | Crime | Argues racial injustice, poverty, and lack of education foster Black crime—and condemns collective punishment. |
| 1920 (Feb) | The House of Jacob | Denounces Southern racial lawlessness—lynching, disfranchisement, failing schools and child labor that betray democracy. |
| 1920 (Feb) | The Unfortunate South | Excoriates the white South’s racial blindness—blaming Black people for social ills and stifling culture. |
| 1920 (Feb) | Clothes | Flips racist assumptions, arguing whites’ fears about Black laundry reveal public-health harms and racial hypocrisy. |
| 1920 (Mar) | Murder Will Out | Exposes how Southern race and class power undermine labor and democracy, exploiting both Black and white workers. |
| 1920 (Apr) | Of Giving Work | Exposes southern paternalism: Black labor sustains white wealth and demands fair wages and political rights. |
| 1920 (May) | Atlanta | Demands voting rights, an end to lynching and Jim Crow, and equal education, labor, and racial democracy. |
| 1920 (May) | Extradition Cases | Shows how northern refusals to extradite Black suspects—amid lynching threats—expose racial injustice in law. |
| 1920 (Jun) | Mississippi | Documents how Mississippi laws and mobs criminalize race equality, censor Black speech, and enforce vigilante terror. |
| 1920 (Jul) | In Georgia | Declares the NAACP’’s Atlanta meeting an epoch: Black demands for vote, anti-lynching, education, labor and full democracy. |
| 1920 (Aug) | The Task | Says Shillady’s resignation exposes entrenched white opposition and limits NAACP methods, urging national action on race. |
| 1921 (Jan) | Votes for Negroes | Denounces Bourbon South racism and urges Black enfranchisement as the cornerstone of democracy against lynching. |
| 1921 (Feb) | The World and Us | Argues in The Crisis (1921) that U.S. race caste, lynching, land monopoly and suppression of speech are pushing American democracy backward. |
| 1921 (Apr) | The Liberal South | Challenges the liberal South and urges white leaders to secure Black rights: vote, end Jim‑Crow travel, education, lynching. |
| 1921 (Jun) | The Rising Truth | Exposes southern racial terror and white hypocrisy and insists education and the ballot are crucial for democracy. |
| 1921 (Nov) | Robert T. Kerlin | Lauds Robert Kerlin’s courage defending Elaine victims, denouncing Southern race injustice and VMI’s academic dismissal. |
| 1922 (May) | Slavery | Condemns ongoing slavery and racial labor exploitation in the South and demands justice for Black Americans. |
| 1922 (May) | Slavery | Exposes continuing slavery and racial injustice in the Southern courts, profiteering elites, and church complicity. |
| 1922 (May) | K.K.K. | Condemns the KKK as cowardly, racist, and lawless, urging the white South to defend democracy and Black rights. |
| 1924 (May) | Fall Books | Reviews fall books, indicting the Southern oligarchy, lynching, and disfranchisement while championing race, democracy, and education |
| 1925 (May) | Our Book Shelf | Reviews Johnson’s Negro Spirituals and Woofter’s racial study, praising musical heritage and calling for racial fairness. |
| 1926 (Feb) | The Newer South | Critiques the New South’s Jim Crow, lynching, and educational neglect while urging white Southerners to join racial justice. |
| 1926 (Jun) | The Shambles of South Carolina | White, Walter in The Crisis (1926) examines the brutal lynching of the Lowman family and Southern mob terror. |
| 1927 (Mar) | Aiken | Condemns Aiken’s lynchocracy: Klan rule, racial violence, and democratic failure with officials complicit. |
| 1927 (Jul) | Flood | Urges Black refugees to flee Southern racial terror—documenting lynching, exploitative relief, and labor coercion. |
| 1927 (Nov) | Peonage | Condemns a Hoover-appointed probe for likely whitewashing peonage in the Mississippi Valley and demands enforcement of rights |
| 1928 (Feb) | The Flood, the Red Cross and the National Guard | Reveals in The Crisis 1928 how 1927 Mississippi flood relief, guided by Red Cross and National Guard, exploited Black labor and spurred migration. |
| 1928 (Mar) | Robert E. Lee | Argues in The Crisis (1928) that commemorating Robert E. Lee masks his role in upholding slavery, urging moral honesty about race and democracy. |
| 1928 (Jun) | Sunny Florida | Argues in The Crisis (1928) that Florida’s so-called boom rests on racial exploitation, police brutality, and corrupted democracy. |
| 1929 (Feb) | A Pilgrimage To The Negro Schools | Profiles Negro schools, lauds student vitality, critiques institutional shortcomings and Jim Crow in The Crisis. |
| 1929 (May) | Herbert Hoover and the South | Argues Hoover’s push for a white-led Southern Republicanism threatens Black suffrage, democracy, and exposes white supremacy. |
| 1932 (Mar) | Dalton, GA | Documents how racial segregation in Dalton, GA denied injured Black patients hospital care, causing deaths and injustice |
| 1933 (Dec) | A Matter of Manners | Criticizes how Southern racial insults erode Black manners and urges reclaiming courtesy as dignity and self-respect. |
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