After the founding of the NAACP in 1910, Du Bois served as the association s director of publications (1910-32) and as the editor of The Crisis, the official organ of the NAACP. In 1926 he visited the Soviet Union and thereafter became increasingly convinced that advancement of American blacks could best be achieved through socialism. In 1934, having left the NAACP, Du Bois returned to teach at Atlanta University; he also served (1940-44) as editor of the university s quarterly Phylon. In 1944 he again joined the staff of the NAACP, as director of the department of special research; he remained with the organization until 1948. Du Bois, increasingly involved in the promotion of world peace and nuclear disarmament, became chairman of the Peace Information Center in New York City in 1950, but the next year the organization was declared subversive by the U.S. government. During the 1950s he traveled extensively in Eastern Europe. Awarded the 1959 Lenin Peace Prize, Du Bois joined the Communist party in 1961 and settled in Ghana later the same year. Shortly before his death in Accra, on August 27, 1963, he became a citizen of Ghana. At the time of his death Du Bois was engaged in editing the Encyclopedia Africana.