The second episode explores the dramatic rise of a successful black middle class and the determination of white supremacists to destroy this fledgling black political power. Through the efforts of men and women like educator Charlotte Hawkins Brown, African Americans continued to move forward. Black artists created new genres of American music and an intellectual elite, personified by the pioneering W.E.B. Du Bois, emerged. Du Bois, a charter member of the newly founded National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was the editor of its magazine, THE CRISIS. This episode ends with the violence at home giving way to warfare abroad as thousands of black Americans depart for World War I.