W. E. B. Du Bois: “Agitation”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In the years that followed the publication of “The Parting of the Ways,” the rift between Du Bois and Washington deepened. In 1905 Du Bois joined with other more militant African Americans to establish the Niagara Movement and push their civil rights agenda. However, they lacked the financial resources to successfully challenge Washington's political power or to pursue their goals. In 1909 Du Bois joined with white liberals to create the National Negro Committee, which would found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1910. That year Du Bois became the only African American on the NAACP board and launched the organization's monthly magazine, the Crisis. Du Bois now had a position with a well-funded civil rights organization that shared his political views and was editing a journal that provided him with an outlet through which to expound on his views. In the first issue of the Crisis, Du Bois published the essay “Agitation,” arguing for the active confrontation of racism and inequality.

“Agitation” was one of the shortest essays that Du Bois wrote but clearly communicated his point. As a political approach, agitation was central to the tactics of the Crisis and the NAACP. Du Bois remarks, “The function of this Association is to tell this nation the crying evil of race prejudice. It is a hard duty but a necessary one—a divine one.” Agitation, he argues, is an essential means of forcing awareness of social evils into the public consciousness; it is particularly necessary to prevent the public from turning a blind eye to the social evils faced by African Americans. Du Bois thus justifies the use of agitation to combat racial injustice. It is significant that Du Bois chose the topic of agitation for one of his first editorials in the Crisis. While Booker T. Washington did speak out on issues like segregation, voting rights, and lynching and was not the accommodationist he often is accused of being, he did avoid direct confrontation with southern racists and southern leaders. Du Bois did not take his civil rights battles to the streets, but he was confrontational in his writing and in the positions he took, and he made sure that agitation defined the tone of the NAACP.