SOURCE: Muraskin, William. “An Alienated Elite: Short Stories in The Crisis, 1910-1950.” Journal of Black Studies 1, no. 3 (March 1971): 282-305.

In the following essay, Muraskin asserts that the short stories published in The Crisis from 1910-1950 reflected the concerns of the black middle class in America during those years.

“The educated American Negro has been aptly described as ‘marginal man,’ living on the same cultural level as his white counterpart, yet subject to the attitudes and conditions experienced by the less endowed members of his race. He has culturally and intellectually left the latter group, but has not made a satisfactory adjustment to the former, and consequently, finds himself on the edge of both” (Eisenberg, 1960).¹ The educated middle-class Negro traditionally was marginal not only culturally, but racially as well, for he was usually mulatto, a descendant of both the Negro and Caucasian races. He was attracted and repelled (Du...