A Portrait of a Sellout

During the height of World War I, W.E.B. Dubois issued one of the most widely-known and least-understood propositions in the history of civil rights protest. In the July 1918 issue of the monthly NAACP journal the Crisis, he [DuBois] called on African Americans to ¡§forget [their] special grievances and close ranks¡¨ with white Americans and the Allies for the duration of the war. This article of course, left many Black political leaders as well …

…race that degrades another. The only plausible explanation is that DuBois¡¦(upon the request of Springarn) chose to ¡§sellout¡¨ his own race in lieu for a position which would place him at an advantage of any other black political leader. I think DuBois wanted that position just so he could boast about having more political ties with the government, and he was willing to completely to set back the civil rights struggle in doing so.