The Fight
Du Bois’s 131 editorials on voting rights, elections, and political strategy in The Crisis (1910-1934)
Du Bois wrote about voting and elections in 131 editorials across the full run of The Crisis. He hammered three recurring arguments: the Fourteenth Amendment required reduced congressional representation for states that disfranchised their citizens; Black voters had to practice strategic bloc voting rather than blind party loyalty; and neither Republicans nor Democrats could be trusted to deliver. The arc runs from hopeful engagement with Woodrow Wilson to bitter realpolitik: Black voters could not afford to vote on tariffs or farm relief. They had to filter every candidate through a single question: “Does this candidate respect Negro humanity?”
Disfranchisement and Representation
Du Bois returned to the constitutional argument repeatedly. Southern states disfranchised Black voters through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and white primaries, then claimed full congressional representation based on the population they had silenced. He called this theft of political power the foundation of the Jim Crow system.
- The White Primary (1911)
- The Fourteenth Amendment (1915) — urges Congress to reduce Southern representation
- The Grandfather Clause (1915) — on the Guinn v. United States decision
- Disenfranchisement (1925) — literacy tests, poll taxes, and the white primary
- Disenfranchisement (1926)
Party Strategy
Neither party earned loyalty. Republicans took Black votes for granted; Democrats actively suppressed them. Du Bois experimented with endorsements, urged bloc voting, flirted with third parties, and grew increasingly skeptical that electoral politics alone could produce change.
- The Last Word in Politics (1912) — urges Black voters to weigh race over party
- How Shall We Vote (1920) — both parties uphold Jim Crow
- How Shall We Vote (1924) — endorses La Follette-Wheeler
- Third Party (1929) — disfranchisement rigs democracy
- The Strategy of the Negro Voter (1933)
Black Women Voters
After the Nineteenth Amendment, Du Bois tracked Black women’s political participation with particular attention. He covered voter registration drives, documented suppression efforts, and treated Black women voters as a potentially transformative political force.
- Colored Women as Voters (1912) — Adella Hunt Logan on suffrage
- The Justice of Woman Suffrage (1912) — Mary Church Terrell’s argument
- Votes for Women (1918)
- Woman Suffrage (1920) — urges Black women to organize and register
- The Woman Voter (1921)
All Voting & Elections Articles
| Date | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1910 (Nov) | Voting | Urges Black voters to cast independent ballots to defend democracy and resist disfranchisement. |
| 1910 (Dec) | The Election | Critiques Black voters’ Democratic shift, urging Democrats to defend racial equality and reject reactionary, oppressive laws. |
| 1911 (Jan) | The Truth | Exposes Southern lies about Black suffrage, documenting racial disfranchisement and threats to democracy. |
| 1911 (Jan) | Allies | Critiques U.S. racial injustice, showing hypocrisy when others gain rights abroad while Black citizens are denied democracy |
| 1911 (Mar) | The Blair Bill | Urges revival of the Blair Bill, arguing federal education aid is essential for democracy and racial justice. |
| 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) | Forward Backward | Critiques how the ‘Negro question’ stalls democracy and reform—exposing suffrage and moral hypocrisy. |
| 1911 (Apr) | Mr. Taft | Condemns Taft’’s race policies, rejecting Southern guardianship over Black education, voting rights and justice. |
| 1911 (Jun) | Christmas Gift | Calls the 1911 vote a Christmas gift for Black voters, detailing disenfranchisement battles and political leverage. |
| 1912 (Feb) | Ohio | Argues in The Crisis (1912) that Ohio women’s suffrage boosts Black political influence, linking democracy, race and labor to win freedom. |
| 1912 (Feb) | Politics | Argues in The Crisis (1912) that Black votes hold the balance of power, urging strategic demands for democracy, justice, and education reforms. |
| 1912 (Mar) | Colored Women as Voters | Logan, Aella Hunt in The Crisis (1912) argues suffrage empowers colored women to improve schools, sanitation and juvenile justice. |
| 1912 (Mar) | The Justice of Woman Suffrage | Terrell, Mary Church in The Crisis (1912) argues for woman suffrage as a racial and moral justice, condemning opposition even among Black men. |
| 1912 (Mar) | Mr. Roosevelt | Exposes Theodore Roosevelt’s racism toward Black Americans and argues for equal rights, voting, and democracy. |
| 1912 (Mar) | Votes for Women | Urges Black voters to back women’s suffrage, tying democracy, racial justice, and uplift to universal enfranchisement. |
| 1912 (May) | The Last Word in Politics | Urges Black voters to weigh race and democracy over party promises, endorsing a risky test of Wilson. |
| 1912 (Jun) | Suffering Suffragettes | Argues in The Crisis (1912) that race shapes suffrage battles, exposing democracy’s flaws and demanding equal rights for women of all colors. |
| 1912 (Jun) | The Odd Fellows | Argues the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows must educate Black voters to strengthen democracy and prevent oligarchy. |
| 1912 (Jun) | The Election | Defends Black support for Wilson, warns of Southern racism and disfranchisement, and urges real justice and democracy. |
| 1913 (Jan) | Emancipation | Condemns post-Emancipation rollback, arguing for a national fight for race, democracy, education and labor rights. |
| 1913 (Feb) | Burleson | Condemns Burleson’s push to segregate the federal civil service, links race exclusion to lynching, and urges action. |
| 1913 (Feb) | Civil Rights | Denounces the Supreme Court’s repeal of civil-rights protections, arguing it exposes a racial betrayal of American democracy |
| 1913 (Mar) | An Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson | Urges Woodrow Wilson to defend Black civil rights—voting, education, labor access—and end lynching to save democracy. |
| 1913 (May) | Woman’s Suffrage | Celebrates defeats of the color line in women’s suffrage and urges Black men and women to fight for a race-blind democracy. |
| 1913 (Jun) | Education | Warns democracy is at risk unless lynching, disfranchisement and racial discrimination are confronted. |
| 1913 (Jun) | The Next Step | Urges lasting NAACP organization to track and defeat anti-Black intermarriage bill sponsors at primaries. |
| 1913 (Nov) | Another Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson | Denounces federal segregation, warns Wilson this assault on race, democracy, and votes will cost political support. |
| 1914 (Jan) | Free, White and Twenty One | Urges “free, white and twenty-one” citizens to join the NAACP, arguing race prejudice endangers democracy and labor. |
| 1914 (Jan) | The Alleged Failure of Democracy | Argues Reconstruction’s alleged failure is a fiction: Black enfranchisement built public education and advanced democracy. |
| 1914 (Feb) | The South in the Saddle | Exposes how Southern disfranchisement inflates Congressional power, forcing national policy and undermining democracy. |
| 1914 (Feb) | Work for Black Folk in 1914 | Urges a bold program to defend Black property, labor, education, civil rights, and democracy from racial oppression. |
| 1914 (Feb) | Votes for Women | Argues Black support for women’’s suffrage strengthens democracy, challenges racial disfranchisement, and advances justice. |
| 1914 (Mar) | Taxation without Representation | Exposes how Black Memphis taxpayers fund education, parks, and infrastructure yet lack representation and democratic rights. |
| 1914 (Jun) | Senators’ Records | Exposes Senate suffrage debates invoking race, naming senators who backed disfranchisement and threatened democracy. |
| 1914 (Jun) | The Congressmen and the NAACP | Exposes congressmen’s evasions on race, lynching, segregation and intermarriage, urging NAACP political accountability. |
| 1914 (Jun) | The Election | Criticizes parties for ignoring 500,000 Black voters, arguing race and democracy force political reckoning. |
| 1914 (Jun) | Supreme Court | Calls on the Supreme Court to reject grandfather clauses, Jim Crow and peonage to protect Black rights. |
| 1915 (Jan) | Agility | Condemns suffragist evasions that defend white supremacy and betray democracy and Black women’s rights. |
| 1915 (Feb) | Suffrage and Women | Warns that suffrage allies use racist, nativist calculations that endanger democracy and the women’s movement. |
| 1915 (Mar) | The Grandfather Clause | Exposes the Grandfather Clause as a racist tool undermining Black democracy, education, and labor rights. |
| 1915 (Apr) | The Immediate Program of the American Negro | Demands full political, industrial, and social equality, urging law reform, education, labor action, and organization. |
| 1915 (Apr) | Woman Suffrage | Argues Black voters must support woman suffrage as a democratic, racial-justice duty that advances equality. |
| 1915 (May) | Credit | Urges unity: credit for resisting racist legislation belongs to collective Black agitation and NAACP-led democracy fights. |
| 1915 (May) | The Fourteenth Amendment | Urges Congress to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment and reduce Southern representation to protect Black democracy. |
| 1915 (May) | The Republicans | Exposes how Republican Party rules quietly disfranchised Southern Black delegates, undermining democracy and race justice. |
| 1915 (May) | Woman Suffrage | Rebukes anti-suffrage claims and affirms that women’s labor, equality, and democratic rights require the vote. |
| 1915 (Jun) | The Elections | Shows how Black voter education determined woman suffrage outcomes and challenged Republican race politics. |
| 1916 (Mar) | St. Louis | Critiques St. Louis segregation, documenting Black mobilization, white paternalism, and threats to racial equality. |
| 1916 (Apr) | The Negro Party | Urges Black voters to form a Negro Party—vote as a unit to win political power and racial justice. |
| 1916 (Apr) | The Presidential Campaign | Condemns Democratic betrayal of Black voters and warns Republicans like Hughes will offer neglect, not justice. |
| 1916 (May) | Mr. Hughes | Warns Republican promises won’t buy Black votes; demands specific racial and democratic commitments from Hughes. |
| 1916 (May) | Presidential Candidates | NAACP in The Crisis (1916) argues candidates must state positions on lynching, disfranchisement and segregation to guide Black voters. |
| 1916 (May) | Southern Civilization | Condemns Southern oligarchy for lynching, disfranchisement, and opposing national suffrage to preserve white supremacy. |
| 1916 (Jun) | Muddle | Argues NAACP must teach political education so Black voters demand candidates’ positions to defend democracy |
| 1917 (Jan) | Justice | Condemns the Justice Department’s racial hypocrisy, ignoring lynching and disfranchisement while policing alleged German plots. |
| 1917 (Feb) | Roosevelt | Praises Theodore Roosevelt’s stand against East St. Louis violence and condemns national hypocrisy on lynching and democracy. |
| 1917 (May) | Register and Vote | Urges Black registration and voting to break the white primary, defend democracy, and win schools and civic reforms. |
| 1918 (Feb) | Tillman | Argues Tillman’s death signals a turn in Southern labor and race politics toward Black enfranchisement. |
| 1918 (Mar) | The Reward | Argues Black wartime loyalty has won citizenship, labor gains, and steps against segregation and lynching. |
| 1918 (Apr) | The Republican Party | Condemns the Republican Party as anti-Black and reactionary, exposing racial exclusion in party politics. |
| 1918 (Apr) | Blease, Vardaman, Hardwick and Company | Condemns Blease, Vardaman and Hardwick as race-haters undermining democracy and the war against despotism. |
| 1918 (May) | The Oath of the Negro Voter | Calls Black voters to protect the ballot, demand enfranchisement, justice, and democratic reform via the NAACP. |
| 1918 (May) | Votes for Women | Urges Black voters to back woman suffrage as a moral and democratic defense against racial disfranchisement. |
| 1919 (Apr) | Byrnes | W.E.B. in The Crisis (1919) argues Congressman Byrnes represents disfranchisement, lynching and wage theft, urging Fourteenth Amendment action. |
| 1919 (May) | The Colored Voter | Argues that off-year elections shape democracy, urging Black voters to research candidates and defeat disloyal officials. |
| 1919 (Jun) | The Ballot | Demands the ballot for Black WWI veterans, arguing democracy and education must end race-based disenfranchisement. |
| 1919 (Jun) | Votes | Argues Black suffrage is the central racial struggle: Northern voters can restore democracy, end Southern disfranchisement. |
| 1920 (Feb) | The House of Jacob | Denounces Southern racial lawlessness—lynching, disfranchisement, failing schools and child labor that betray democracy. |
| 1920 (Mar) | Woman Suffrage | Urges Black women to organize, study laws, register, and prepare for suffrage to defend democracy and race rights. |
| 1920 (Mar) | How Shall We Vote | Warns GOP and Democrats uphold Jim Crow; urges Black voters to elect congressional allies to defend race and democracy. |
| 1920 (Apr) | Every Four Years | Denounces the Republican Party for buying Southern delegates, betraying Black leaders and enabling disfranchisement. |
| 1920 (Apr) | Remember | Warns that the South’s fragile power relies on racial disfranchisement and urges federal defense of democracy. |
| 1920 (Apr) | Southern Representatives | Urges Republicans to cut Southern representation to punish Jim Crow disenfranchisement and defend Black voting. |
| 1920 (May) | Atlanta | Demands voting rights, an end to lynching and Jim Crow, and equal education, labor, and racial democracy. |
| 1920 (May) | Get Ready | Calls on Black Americans to prepare, defend voting rights, and legally resist Southern efforts to disfranchise Black women. |
| 1920 (Jun) | Presidential Candidates | Catalogs 17 presidential candidates’’ stances on lynching, Jim Crow, schools and voting—exposing political silence. |
| 1920 (Jul) | In Georgia | Declares the NAACP’’s Atlanta meeting an epoch: Black demands for vote, anti-lynching, education, labor and full democracy. |
| 1920 (Oct) | Triumph | Celebrates woman suffrage as a democratic triumph and links opposition to lynching, child labor, and racial injustice. |
| 1920 (Nov) | Suffrage | Argues southern suffrage laws mask race-based disenfranchisement, subverting democracy to preserve white supremacy. |
| 1920 (Dec) | The Unreal Campaign | Condemns an unreal presidential campaign that weaponized race, undermined democracy and failed labor and third parties. |
| 1921 (Jan) | Election Day in Florida | White, Walter F. in The Crisis (1921) argues the 1920 Florida election was marked by Klan terror, killings and mass Black disenfranchisement. |
| 1921 (Jan) | Political Rebirth and the Office Seeker | Urges Black voters to convert growing political power into deeds: federal anti-lynching, end Jim Crow, universal education. |
| 1921 (Jan) | Votes for Negroes | Denounces Bourbon South racism and urges Black enfranchisement as the cornerstone of democracy against lynching. |
| 1921 (Feb) | Reduced Representation in Congress | Urges reducing Southern congressional seats under the 14th Amendment to punish disfranchisement and defend democracy. |
| 1921 (Feb) | Of Problems | Criticizes racial double standards that deny Black social equality, voting rights and self‑defense. |
| 1921 (Feb) | Politics and Power | Exposes how disfranchisement and racist tax and school policies in Mississippi deny Black education, democracy, and services. |
| 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 (Mar) | The Woman Voter | Celebrates Black women’s voting as a democratic advance and reproves leaders like James B. Dudley who urged abstention. |
| 1922 (Jan) | The Harding Political Plan | Condemns Harding’s plan to impose white rule and split Black votes, urging voters to protect race, democracy and the Dyer bill. |
| 1922 (Jan) | Mr. Howard | Urges Perry Howard and Black officials to reject token roles, defend anti-lynching reform, and uphold race dignity. |
| 1922 (May) | The Drive | Urges Black Americans to back the NAACP, fight lynching and Jim Crow at home, and defend democracy. |
| 1922 (May) | The President | Denounces Republican race patronage and urges anti-lynching, labor and education reforms to defend democracy. |
| 1923 (Jan) | Intentions | Condemns partisan betrayal over the Dyer anti‑lynching bill and urges Black political power, sustained fight for democracy. |
| 1923 (Jan) | Political Straws | Analyzes Black voting strategy—rejecting enemies, backing allies, and demanding racial justice in democracy. |
| 1924 (Jan) | Vote | Urges Black voters to target traitorous Congress and state candidates, using strategic voting to defend democracy. |
| 1924 (Feb) | La Follette | Condemns La Follette’s program for ignoring race and the Ku Klux Klan, risking continued injustice for Black Americans. |
| 1924 (Mar) | The N.A.A.C.P. and Parties | Condemns party patronage, urges Black voters to defend democracy, and promotes nonpartisan debate on race. |
| 1924 (May) | How Shall We Vote | Urges voting La Follette–Wheeler, ties race and economic injustice to politics, condemns Coolidge and the Klan. |
| 1924 (Dec) | The Election | Critiques the election’s effects on Black democracy, cataloging gains in representation and losses from Klan resurgence. |
| 1925 (Mar) | Radicals and the Negro | Argues in The Crisis that radicals must include Black emancipation—voting, education, labor and anti-lynching—to defend American democracy. |
| 1925 (Jun) | Disenfranchisement | Documents how literacy tests, poll taxes and the White Primary disenfranchise Black voters and hollow democracy. |
| 1925 (Jul) | Ferdinand Q. Morton | Profiles Ferdinand Q. Morton, a Tammany leader using party politics to secure Black representation and jobs. |
| 1926 (May) | Disenfranchisement | Argues in The Crisis (1926) that Southern disenfranchisement of Black voters undermines democracy and fuels white supremacy. |
| 1927 (Feb) | “Harmless Flourish” | Condemns Georgia disfranchisement and unequal voting power as drivers of graft, corruption, and broken democracy. |
| 1927 (Feb) | Chicago | Condemns Chicago Democrats’ anti-Black campaign, showing race-driven tactics that coerced Black votes and weakened democracy. |
| 1927 (Nov) | Smith | Argues Governor Smith’s nomination would expose Southern racism and could shatter the Solid South, advancing democracy. |
| 1928 (Mar) | Augustus G. Dill | Shows in The Crisis (1928) that democracy hinges on Black voters, warning that anti-vote campaigns undermine race, rights, and progress. |
| 1928 (May) | The Negro Politician | Examines how Black voters confront graft and Jim Crow, arguing informed participation is essential to democracy in The Crisis (1928). |
| 1928 (Aug) | The Negro Voter | Argues the disenfranchised Negro vote can shape democracy when educated, mobilized, and strategically organized. |
| 1928 (Sep) | Booze | Exposes white hypocrisy in Republican politics, revealing how race and gender shape democracy in The Crisis, 1928, Booze. |
| 1928 (Sep) | Houston | Writing for The Crisis (1928), shows the Democratic Party weaponizing race to suppress Black voters, exposing Jim-Crow politics and corruption. |
| 1928 (Sep) | Howard | Exposes bipartisan graft around Perry Howard, condemns black disenfranchisement and threats to democracy. |
| 1928 (Sep) | The Possibility of Democracy | Argues democracy rests on broad citizen participation, condemning racial disfranchisement and illiteracy as threats. |
| 1928 (Oct) | The Possibility of Democracy in America | Argues that American democracy is endangered as Black disfranchisement and white oligarchy reshape voting. |
| 1928 (Nov) | On the Fence | Shows Hoover and Smith align on oligarchy and color caste, urging Black voters to back Congress against the color bar. |
| 1928 (Nov) | A Third Party | Argues the Solid South makes third-party success impossible, tying race, democracy, and labor to electoral power. |
| 1928 (Dec) | The Campaign of 1928 | Condemns both parties’ betrayal of Black voters and urges a Third Party for racial justice, labor rights and democracy. |
| 1928 (Dec) | The Election | Condemns the white primary, praises Oscar DePriest, and urges democracy against corrupt political machines. |
| 1929 (Feb) | DePriest | Defends Oscar DePriest’s election as a step for Black rights and democracy despite political compromises. |
| 1929 (Feb) | Third Party | Argues Southern disfranchisement rigs democracy, blocking Third Party politics and sustaining racialized plutocracy. |
| 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. |
| 1929 (May) | The Negro Citizen | Argues that Black political power—secure voting rights—is essential to democracy, education, labor and racial justice. |
| 1929 (Nov) | The Negro in Politics | Argues Black political opportunism—esp. Harlem—rises as race shapes democracy, forcing pragmatic voting to protect rights. |
| 1930 (Aug) | A New Party | Urges a new labor party to expand public ownership, social welfare, restore Black voting rights and curb imperialism. |
| 1932 (Feb) | The Non-Partisan Conference | Denounces a tepid economic plank, urging Black political power for labor, redistribution and emancipation. |
| 1932 (Sep) | Young Voters | Urges young Black Southerners to register, organize, and vote to combat racial disenfranchisement and local discrimination. |
| 1932 (Nov) | Herbert Hoover | Indicts Herbert Hoover for ‘Lily-White’ politics, race-based appointments, and policies that crush Black labor and democracy |
| 1933 (Mar) | Color Caste in the United States | Exposes the U.S. color caste that denies Black rights in marriage, labor, education and democracy. |
| 1933 (May) | Scottsboro | Condemns Scottsboro as proof that racial disfranchisement destroys justice and demands Black political voice. |
| 1933 (Jun) | The Strategy of the Negro Voter | Urges Black voters to adopt opportunist tactics—protecting survival while pressing racial, labor and democratic reforms. |
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