Dare You Fight: W.E.B. Du Bois Digital Archive

A comprehensive digital archive of W.E.B. Du Bois's writings from The Crisis magazine (1910-1934), featuring 700+ articles with Library Science-based indexing and scholarly metadata.

🌐 Live Site: www.dareyoufight.org

Overview

This archive preserves and makes accessible Du Bois's editorial writings from his tenure as editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP. The collection documents 25 years of commentary on racial violence, voting rights, education, Pan-Africanism, and the ongoing struggle for Black liberation in America.

Key Features

• 708 articles with full text and scholarly metadata
• Library Science indexing with 5 structured metadata fields
• 76 browse pages organized by subject, person, and place
• Full-text search across all articles
• SEO optimized for discoverability
• Mobile responsive design
• Citation support with DOIs and Google Scholar integration

Archive Statistics

• 2,750+ unique subjects indexed
• 620+ people discussed across articles
• 493+ places referenced
• 585+ organizations documented
• 229+ historical events tagged

Top Subjects

• Lynching (72 articles)
• Voting rights (16 articles)
• Pan-Africanism (16 articles)
• Educational inequality (18 articles)
• Jim Crow laws (15 articles)

Featured Historical Figures

• Woodrow Wilson (34 articles)
• Booker T. Washington (17 articles)
• Marcus Garvey (7 articles)
• Theodore Roosevelt (14 articles)
• Herbert Hoover (12 articles)

Browse the Archive

The archive offers multiple ways to explore Du Bois's writings:

• By Subject - Browse by theme (lynching, voting rights, education, etc.)
• By People - Browse by historical figures discussed
• By Place - Browse by geographic location
• By Decade - Browse by time period
• Chronological - Complete listing with search
• Visual Map - Geographic visualization

Project Structure

fightordie/
├── Volumes/              # Article files organized by volume/issue
│   ├── 01/              # Volume 1 (Nov 1910 - Oct 1911)
│   ├── 02/              # Volume 2 (Nov 1911 - Oct 1912)
│   └── ...
├── browse/              # Browse pages by subject/people/places
│   ├── subjects/        # Subject browse pages
│   ├── people/          # People browse pages
│   └── places/          # Place browse pages
├── docs/                # Rendered HTML output (GitHub Pages)
├── _quarto.yml          # Quarto configuration
├── index.qmd            # Homepage
├── listing.qmd          # Complete article listing
└── README.md            # This file

Technology Stack

• Quarto - Publishing system for scholarly content
• GitHub Pages - Hosting and deployment
• OpenAI GPT-5-mini - Automated metadata generation
• Python - Data processing and workflow automation

Metadata Structure

Each article includes comprehensive metadata following Library Science principles:

---
title: 'Article Title'
description: "SEO-optimized description"
author:
  - name:
      given: W.E.B.
      family: Du Bois
date: March 1916

# Structured index terms
subjects:
  - Lynching
  - Voting rights
people:
  - Woodrow Wilson
  - Booker T. Washington
places:
  - Washington, D.C.
  - Mississippi
organizations:
  - NAACP
  - U.S. Congress
events:
  - World War I (1914-1918)

# Citation metadata
citation:
  type: article-journal
  container-title: The Crisis
  volume: 12
  issue: 3
  page: 113-114
---

Adding New Articles

We've created a streamlined workflow for adding articles to the archive:

Quick Start

# 1. Create article from template
python new_article.py \
  --volume 12 \
  --issue 3 \
  --title "The Crisis of Democracy" \
  --date "March 1916" \
  --pages "113-114"

# 2. Edit the created file and add article content

# 3. Auto-generate metadata (description + index terms)
python process_new_articles.py

# 4. Preview locally
quarto preview

# 5. Commit and deploy
git add Volumes/
git commit -m "Add article: The Crisis of Democracy"
git push

See ARTICLE_WORKFLOW.md for complete documentation.

Available Scripts

Article Management

• new_article.py - Create new article from template
• process_new_articles.py - Auto-generate descriptions and index terms
• add_article_descriptions.py - Add SEO descriptions only
• add_article_index.py - Add Library Science index terms only

Browse Page Generation

• generate_browse_pages.py - Generate subject/people/place browse pages
• create_browse_indexes.py - Generate browse directory indexes
• analyze_index_terms.py - Analyze index term frequency

Utilities

• clean_empty_categories.py - Clean up empty category entries
• fix_categories.py - Fix category YAML formatting

Development

Prerequisites

• Quarto (latest version)
• Python 3.9+
• uv (Python package manager)
• OpenAI API key (for metadata generation)

Setup

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/nealcaren/fightordie.git
cd fightordie

# Set OpenAI API key
export OPENAI_API_KEY='your-key-here'

# Install dependencies (handled by uv automatically)

# Preview site locally
quarto preview

Build and Deploy

# Render site
quarto render

# Output is in docs/ directory
# Push to GitHub and it auto-deploys via GitHub Pages
git push

Documentation

• ARTICLE_WORKFLOW.md - Complete guide for adding articles
• INDEX_TAXONOMY.md - Library Science indexing guidelines
• CATEGORIES.md - Original category taxonomy (legacy)

Citation

If you use this archive in your research, please cite:

@misc{dubois_crisis_archive,
  title = {Dare You Fight: W.E.B. Du Bois Digital Archive},
  author = {Caren, Neal},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://www.dareyoufight.org},
  note = {Digital archive of W.E.B. Du Bois's writings from The Crisis magazine, 1910-1934}
}

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Follow the article workflow for new content
4. Submit a pull request

Acknowledgments

• W.E.B. Du Bois - Author of all articles
• The Crisis Magazine - Original publisher (1910-1934)
• NAACP - Publisher of The Crisis
• Modernist Journals Project - Source for many articles
• HathiTrust Digital Library - Additional source materials

License

The articles by W.E.B. Du Bois are in the public domain. The website code and structure are available under the MIT License.

Contact

For questions or feedback:

• GitHub Issues: github.com/nealcaren/fightordie/issues
• Website: www.dareyoufight.org

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"Dare you fight or would you rather die?" - W.E.B. Du Bois, The Crisis