MARVIN
DULANEY

by W. Marvin Dulaney

 

The Dallas Pan-African Think Tank follows a long tradition of African Americans responding to crises by presenting research, publishing factual commentaries, and challenging the lies about them perpetrated by politicians, the mainstream media, and others. Since 1897, when Alexander Crummell gathered some of the nation’s leading African American scholars to form the American Negro Academy, African Americans have challenged the lies, distortions, and stereotypes about their history, their culture, and their way of life. The Dallas Pan-African Think Tank follows in that tradition. Like the American Negro Academy, it will publish “Occasional Papers” (Black Papers!) to address the following:

 

• To tell the truth about all aspects of African American life.

• To address contemporary policies and issues that affect the African American community.

• To present interpretations of African American history.

• To challenge racism.

• To call out lies and liars--black and white—who misrepresent the African American community and its experiences in this country.

 

The Dallas Pan-African Think Tank also continues another tradition: using scientific research to challenge racism and discrimination. After a brutal race riot in Springfield, Illinois, in the fall of 1908, in which whites literally burnt down the homes of African Americans and drove them out of town, in 1909, progressive blacks and whites formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). While the NAACP struggled to find its mission, W. E. B. Du Bois began publishing The Crisis, a monthly magazine that addressed the race question, documented the NAACP's work to improve the lives of African Americans, and challenged the prevailing racism of the early twentieth century.

 

The Crisis became the most important publication of its time in not only covering and addressing the race question, but it also presented a perspective that supported the humanity of African Americans. The research and interpretations presented in the occasional papers, “Black Papers,” and publications of the Dallas Pan African Think Tank will carry on the scholarly and ground-breaking traditions of the American Negro Academy and The Crisis.