In the spring of 1919, nearly six months after World War I ground to a halt, a largely forgotten event in Black history, a story that all schoolchildren — and journalists — should know, began to unfold. At the center of this was W.E.B. DuBois, whose legacy is remembered during Black History Month and the commemoration of the 155th anniversary of his birth. In late April of that year, 100,000 copies of Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, were locked in a back room of New York City’s main post office. The order to delay the mailing of the May issue of the civil rights organization’s publication came from Robert A. Bowen, a mid-level federal official who headed a censorship office in the Department of Justice.
