The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

by Les Payne

In a postwar editorial in The Crisis, Du Bois, again like Frederick Douglass, urged Negroes to “close ranks” for full citizenship and to “marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land.” 6 Later in 1919, Du Bois more specifically wrote: “For three centuries we have suffered and cowered. No race ever gave passive submission to evil longer, more piteous trial. Today we raise the terrible weapon of self-defense. When the murderer comes, he shall no longer strike us in the back. When the armed lynchers gather, we too must gather armed. When the mob moves, we propose to meet it with bricks and clubs and guns.” 7 Despite the odds, Du Bois urged Negroes to make their armed stand in the land where their forebears labored and died as slaves.