The Crisis of Leadership
The Debate over Means and Ends
In the nineteenth century the problem that faced the Afro-American
community was how to destroy the institution of slavery. In the
twentieth century the question was how to achieve equality. Frederick
Douglass had been in the vanguard of the fight to overthrow the peculiar
institution. Later, he was among the first to realize that Emancipation
had not solved all the problems. It was his belief that the forces of
racism and indifference were responsible for relegating the ex-slave to a
second-class status. When the Federal Government terminated
Reconstruction without providing his people with the tools for competing
in American society, Douglass's disappointment was severe.
At the turn of the century the focus of the problems facing
Afro-Americans had changed. Slavery had been abolished, but not race
prejudice. The elimination of this scourge became the basis for a new
drive. Douglass, who for a half century had been looked upon as the
spokesman for his people, was too old to tackle the task of ending
segregation and prejudice based on race. When he died early in 1895, the
Afro-American community was left without leadership capable of uniting
the diverse elements within the movement. The pressing need was for black
men and women to escape physical violence and to find acceptance with
dignity, and it couldn't wait.
However, within this community there were many who were capable of
leadership. What was lacking were the instruments of leadership. Money,
power, and the press, for the most part, were in the hands of whites who
had concluded that the ex-slave would have to solve his own problems.
What this meant was that the Whites wanted to be left in peace. Dozens of
Afro-Americans, however, were not content to accept the degrading
position which had been assigned to them. Utilizing the limited resources
within their own community, new leadership evolved and began to debate
the issues of the day. Before Emancipation the problems had seemed
simple. All attention was focused on the abolition of slavery, and the
only point of controversy centered on the means by which it should be
achieved. But segregation and discrimination were not so easily defined
and attacked. The debates which ensued widened to include disagreement
over both means and ends. A vocal minority, discouraged by the
emasculating effects of discrimination, believed that they should
withdraw from white society altogether. Some of them wanted to return to
Africa and to assist its inhabitants in their liberation from European
imperialism. They planned to create an independent African nation.
Others, while not wanting to leave America, still wanted to withdraw from
white society into a world of their own choosing and making.
The majority, however, insisted that the African immigrant, like those
from Europe, had the right to all the privileges of being American. Some
of them wanted to join the white society, accept its Euro-American
cultural values, forget their past, and assimilate into the mainstream of
American life. Still others, while wanting to find their place within the
American nation, insisted that the country must be transformed into a
genuinely pluralistic society. While they wanted to be integrated into
the nation, they did not want to join the white society. Instead of
assimilating into Anglo-Saxon culture, they wanted American civilization
to become multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and highly fluid.
The means which were proposed to achieve these differing ends were highly
diverse. Some argued that the ex-slave must first demonstrate his
readiness to be accepted within white society. Others claimed that they
need only demand the rights which were legally theirs. In order to do
this they planned to make aggressive use of the press and the courts.
Mass organization to achieve economic and political pressure was also
recommended as another technique.
There were scores of leaders representing dozens of differing positions.
In the first half of the twentieth century, the spectrum was limited
almost exclusively to the advocacy of nonviolent techniques. Four of
these leaders will be discussed below. Their ideas present a broad
overview of the concepts to be found within the Afro-American community.
Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and A. Philip
Randolph represented a wide variety of approaches, their ideas forming
the total spectrum of the thrust for remaking the black role in white
society.
Booker T. Washington: The Trumpet of Conciliation
Within a few months of Douglass's death, a new leader was thrust upon the
Afro-American community. Unlike Douglass, who believed in self-assertion,
Booker T. Washington developed a leadership style based on the model of
the old plantation house servant. He used humility, politeness, flattery,
and restraint as a wedge with which he hoped to split the wall of racial
discrimination. His conciliatory approach won the enthusiastic support of
the solid South as well as that of influential Northern politicians and
industrialists, Their backing gained him a national reputation and
provided him with easy access to the press. Members of his own community
were filled with pride to see one of their own treated with such respect
by wealthy and influential leaders of white America. When Theodore
Roosevelt entertained Washington for dinner at the White House, the
Afro-American community was overjoyed. However, some whites believed that
it had been a dangerous breach of etiquette. Nevertheless, there were
those within the Afro-American community who were not enthusiastic about
their new leader. They believed that conciliation was the road to
surrender and not the way to victory.
Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on April 5, 1856. His mother
had been a slave in Franklin County, Virginia. The identity of his white
father remains unknown. After Emancipation the family moved to West
Virginia where it struggled to achieve a livelihood. Young Booker
attended a school for the children of ex-slaves while, at the same time,
holding down a full-time job in the mines. As a courteous, cooperative,
hard-working young man he secured a job cleaning and doing other tasks
around the house of one of the mine owners. This occupation was less
strenuous than working in the mines, and it left him more energy to
pursue his studies, In 1872, with nothing to help him besides his
determination, he traveled and worked his way hundreds of miles to
Hampton Institute. Undaunted by lack of tuition, he insisted that he
could do some useful work to cover his expenses. When he was directed to
clean the adjoining room as a kind of entrance test, his response was to
apply himself to the task. When the teacher's white handkerchief could
not discover any dirt in the room, she was so impressed with his work and
with his genial personality that she admitted him to the institute and
found a janitorial job to ease his financial situation.
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute had been started after the
Civil War by General Samuel Armstrong to train ex-slaves to lead their
people in pursuit of land and homes. Armstrong strongly believed that
they should not be given what they could earn for themselves. Therefore,
the institute strove to teach the student manners, cleanliness, morality,
and practical skills with which to make a living, He believed that hard
work for its own sake developed moral virtue, and he tried to instill
this respect for labor into his students.
After graduating, Washington became an instructor at Hampton Institute.
Then in 1881, he was invited to Tuskegee, Alabama, to found a similar
school there. Louis Adams, a skilled freedman, had made a political deal
which led to the establishment of the Tuskegee Institute. In return for
his delivery of the Negro vote, the state legislature provided minimal
funds for educating ex-slaves. The roof of the building which they were
using leaked and the students often had to study with umbrellas over
their heads.
In effect, the institute became a kind of commune. The students grew
their own food on the adjoining land, and they erected their own
buildings. They sold their excess produce to the citizens of Tuskegee.
They also developed skills in carpentry, brick-making, and a score of
other trades and sold their products to the community. Gradually, as the
white citizens realized that the school was not developing aggressive
blacks and that the students were providing a contribution to the
community, they came to accept it and to help it to develop by
contributing funds and supplies. They found that Tuskegee students were
hard-working, courteous, and humble instead of being self-assertive and
articulate. They realized that their fears of educating the ex-slave had
been unfounded.
In an attempt to lure more business and industry into the South,
political leaders scheduled a trade exposition for Atlanta, Georgia, in
1895. A delegation was sent to the nation's capital to request financial
aid from a Congressional comittee. Booker T. Washington was included in
the delegation as a token that there was backing from all portions of the
community for the project. Speaking to the comittee, Washington said
that: "the Negro should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise,
political agitation alone would not save him, and that to back the ballot
he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and
character, and that no race without these elements could permanently
succeed."
The delegation admitted that his oratory had significantly helped their
cause. They were impressed with his racial views, particularly when he
stated that character development was more important than political
agitation. This was a position which they could whole-heartily endorse.
The Cotton States Exposition which was held in Atlanta in 1895 strove to
project an image of the South as a peaceful and prosperous region. It
tried to represent the South as a desirable location for future financial
investment. Part of the peaceful image which it tried to create was a
picture of racial harmony. The Exposition had a pavilion which was built
by ex-slaves and which displayed their products, and it was decided to
invite a Negro to speak at the Exposition. The choice fell on Booker T.
Washington. His famous speech, which later became known as "The Atlanta
Compromise", lay heavily on his mind for many weeks before its delivery.
He wanted to cement racial relations as well as to advance the status of
his people. He was afraid of saying something which might undermine the
cause.
Washington's speech was built around two graphic images. In the first, he
told the story of a ship at sea which was out of fresh water. It signaled
a passing vessel that it needed fresh water. The other ship told them to
let down their bucket. Finally, after much consternation, the crew
complied. Instead of finding salt water as they had expected, the bucket
was pulled up filled with fresh water from the mouth of the Amazon.
Washington used this image to suggest that the racial situation could be
improved if both races would begin from where they were. The second
picture which he used was that of the hand. He pointed out that while the
hand was one, the fingers were separate. Similarly, he suggested that
national unity and social segregation could go together.
Washington built on the image of the ship's needing fresh water to
persuade Negroes to start where they were in building their future. He
said:
"To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign
land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly
relations with the southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I
would say: 'Cast down your bucket where you are, cast it down in making
friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are
surrounded. Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in
domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is
well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to
bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that
the Negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing
is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our
greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may
overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of
our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion
as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill
into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we
learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the
ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it
learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a
poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor
should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities."
Washington then turned to the whites in the audience and urged them to
start where they were in building national prosperity and racial unity.
He said:
"To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign
birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were
I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, 'Cast down your
bucket where you are.' Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes
whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days
when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast
down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor
wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads
and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and
helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of
the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and
encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of
head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus
land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your
factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the
past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient,
faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen....
so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a
devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if
need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial,
civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the
interests of both races one."
He summed up his plea for racial cooperation with the second pictorial
image. He told the audience that "In all things that are purely social we
can be as separate as the fingers, yet as one as the hand in all things
essential to mutual progress." This proposal brought forth thunderous
applause. He went on to say that the wisest in his race were aware that
fighting for social equality was folly. The ex-slave, he believed, must
first struggle and prepare himself for the assumption of his rights,
which were privileges to be earned. While he did believe that his people
would receive their full rights at some future date, he insisted that
"The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth
infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an
opera-house." Economic opportunity was far more important than either
social equality or political rights. He closed the speech by praising the
Exposition for the effect it would have in bringing fresh material
prosperity to the South, and added:
"... yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good,
that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional
differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to
administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to
the mandates of law. This, coupled with our material prosperity, will
bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth."
When he finished, the audience applauded wildly. Governor Bullock rushed
across the platform and shook his hand. The next day he was greeted and
praised enthusiastically on the Atlanta streets. President Cleveland,
after having read the speech, wrote Washington and thanked him for what
he had said. The following year Harvard University granted him an
honorary Master's degree. The press both North and South quoted all or
parts of the speech, and most of the newspapers carried appreciative
editorials. The Charleston News and Courier, for example said "His skin
is colored, but his head is sound, and his heart is in the right place."
Money poured in to finance the Tuskegee Institute. Overnight Washington
was skyrocketed to national fame.
However, there were those who did not appreciate their new leader's call
to conciliation. In view of the growing virulence of racism and the
spread of Jim Crow legislation, they believed that his refusal to demand
their rights was, in fact, a form of emasculation.
John Hope was one of those who had heard the Atlanta speech and did not
want to accept the compromise. He was a professor at Roger Williams
University in Nashville, Tennessee, and later was to become president of
Atlanta University. The following year, after carefully considering
Washington's speech, he made an address of his own to his colleagues in
Nashville. He bitterly attacked the compromise and said that he believed
it to be cowardly for a black man to admit that his people were not
striving for equality. If money, education, and honesty would not bring
the black man as much respect as they would to another American citizen,
they were a curse and not a blessing.
This was obviously an attack on Washington's statement that the right to
earn a dollar was worth more than anything else. He said that if he did
not have the right to spend a dollar in the opera house and to do those
things that other free men do, he was not free. Hope was not content with
demanding equality in vague terms. He insisted that what he wanted was
social equality. Instead of urging conciliation, he advocated that the
Afro-Americans should be restless and dissatisfied. When their
discontent broke through the wall of discrimination, then there would be
no need to plead for Justice. Then they would be men. A decade later,
those who opposed Washington's leadership decided that they needed to
organize and coordinate their activities.
John Hope, W. E. B. DuBois, Monroe Trotter, and several others wanted to
speak out more vigorously against racial discrimination, segregation, and
lynching. To do this, they created the Niagara Movement to challenge the
political domination of Washington's Tuskegee machine. Because he was the
recognized advisor to politicians and philanthropists, this was a
difficult task. Hope's criticism resulted in the diminution of financial
support to Atlanta University where Hope was president.
W. E. B. DuBois, who was a professor at Atlanta University at that time,
charged that:
"Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for
the present, three things,--First, political power; second, insistence on
civil rights; Third, higher education of Negro youth,--and concentrate
their energies on industrial education, the accumulation of wealth, and
the conciliation of the South.... As a result of this tender of the
palm-branch, what has been the return? In these years there have
occurred: 1. The disenfranchisement of the Negro. 2. The legal creation
of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro. 3. The steady
withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington's
teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of a doubt, helped
their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: Is it possible,
and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in
economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile
caste, and allowed only the most meager chance for developing their
exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these
questions, it is an emphatic No."
He believed that beginning at the bottom with a humble trade was the best
way to stay at the bottom, respect should be worth more than material
advancement. He believed that Washington's policy had replaced manliness
with a shallow materialism. Monroe Trotter edited the Boston Guardian
which was one of the most militant papers published in the Afro-American
community. Trotter used it as a platform from which to attack
Washington's leadership. On one occasion when Washington was speaking in
Boston, Trotter was among those arrested for creating a disturbance
during the lecture. When the Niagara Movement was dissolved in 1909 and
most of its leaders joined with liberal whites in founding the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Trotter refused to
follow them. Besides distrusting the conciliatory policies of
Washington, he could not put his trust in an integrated movement.
In the years immediately preceding his death in 1915, Washington hinted
at a growing disillusionment with the way in which his compromise had
worked. In 1912 he wrote an article for Century magazine entitled "Is the
Negro Having a Fair Chance?" In it he criticized the fact that more money
was appropriated for the education of whites than of blacks. He also
criticized the convict lease system which had developed in the South. His
dissatisfaction with segregation became clear when he pointed out that
although Jim Crow facilities might be separate they were never equal.
Another article which he had written was published after his death in the
New Republic. In it he described the terrible effects of segregation. He
said that it meant inferior sidewalks, inferior street-lighting, inferior
sewage facilities, and inferior police protection. Such lacks made for
difficult neighborhoods in which to raise families in decency.
If Washington's program was a sellout, as many believed, it is becoming
increasingly clear that he did not intend his compromise as an end in
itself. He believed that it could be the means to a much broader future.
When he spoke before the Congressional comittee early in 1895, he
expressed his opposition to disenfranchisement on a racial basis. His
apparent acceptance of it at Atlanta was only a tactical maneuver. In an
article which he wrote in 1898, he said that he believed that the time
would come when his people would be given all of their rights in the
South. He said that they would receive the privileges due to any citizen
on the basis of ability, character, and material possessions. He was, in
effect, approving disenfranchisement of the poor and ignorant in both
races. When Negroes did receive what was due them as citizens, he said,
it would come from Southern whites as the result of the natural evolution
of mutual trust and acceptance. Artificial external pressure, he
insisted, would not help.
The Atlanta Compromise was to be the means to an end and not an end in
itself. If the ex-slave would start at the bottom, develop manners and
friendliness, Washington believed that he could make his labor
indispensable to white society. Acceptance of segregation was, at that
time, a necessary part of good behavior. If the whites, in turn, opened
the doors of economic opportunity to the ex-slave instead of importing
more European immigrants, Washington said that the nation would have an
English-speaking non-striking labor force. Gradually, individual
Afro-Americans would gain trust, acceptance, and respect. The class line
based on color would be replaced by one based on intelligence and
morality.
Washington seemed to be unaware that a race which began at the bottom
could stay at the bottom. In an age of rapid urbanization and
industrialization a strategy which emphasized craft and agriculture was
drastically out of step with the economic realities. Moreover the nation
did not accept its part of the compromise. The flood of immigration
continued unabated for another two decades. When Afro-Americans were
given opportunities in industry, it became clear that there were black
jobs and white jobs. The former were always poorly paid.
There were two bases for Washington's belief that the Negro should start
at the bottom and work his way up. The nineteenth-century economic creed
had taught that hard work unlocked the door which led from rags to
riches. This teaching was also reinforced by Washington's own experience.
Born in slavery and poverty, he rose from obscurity to fame and influence
through honesty and industry. However, Washington seemed unaware that the
most which his policy could ever achieve was a token acceptance which
would leave the Negro masses behind.
W. E. B. DuBois: The Trumpet of Confrontation
In contrast to Washington's policy of conciliation and compromise, W. E.
B. DuBois believed that it was necessary to act like men in order to be
accepted as men, Speaking the truth as he saw it, loudly, clearly, and
fearlessly, was to him the minimum criterion for manliness. This led to a
contrasting style of leadership. Where Washington had been polite and
ingratiating, DuBois was self-assertive and, frequently, aggressive.
Where Washington had tried to win the trust of white bigots, DuBois
insisted on confronting them with the truth as he saw it. Where
Washington had counseled peace, DuBois clamored for action.
The contrasting leadership styles of Washington and DuBois were rooted in
their differing life experiences. DuBois was born in February, 1868, in
Great Barrington, Massachusetts. His grandfather had procured his own
freedom through participating in the American Revolution. DuBois received
his elementary and secondary education in an integrated setting which
prevented his becoming conscious of the color bar. However, receiving an
integrated college education was not so simple. Instead he headed South
to Fisk University to further his education, There, the daily insults of
discrimination and segregation came to him as a shock. He had not been
trained to accept them, and these daily harassments filled him with anger
and hostility. He returned north to pursue his graduate education at
Harvard University, and he also spent some time at the University of
Berlin exploring the new field of sociology.
DuBois's first-class education as well as his own scholarly bent led him
to put considerable faith in reason and learning as the tools with which
to rebuild the world. He came to believe that bigotry and discrimination
were rooted in ignorance and that scholarship could destroy them by
exposing them to the light of truth. He strove to demonstrate that the
Afro-American was not innately inferior and that his inferior status
sprang from his unequal and unfair treatment in America.
While at Harvard, he wrote "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade"
which was of such high quality that it became the first volume in an
important historical series published by Harvard. Soon afterwards, while
teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, he conducted extensive
sociological research which resulted in "The Philadelphia Negro". This
pioneering sociological work was valuable for the understanding of the
Negro in Philadelphia and throughout the North, At that time sociology
was a new field, and there was not a single institution of higher
learning in the United States or the world which had adopted it as the
tool for studying the problems of minority groups. Atlanta University
invited DuBois to come there and teach and to conduct sociological
studies. There he began a research department which was devoted to
studying the problems of the Afro-American community and which resulted
in the production of a dozen works.
Besides his interest in scholarly research, DuBois developed a theory of
racial leadership. For a people to advance, he believed, they needed
leaders. If they failed to develop such people of their own, they would
be guided by others. DuBois was doubtful whether his people should
entrust themselves to white leaders. He agreed with Washington that the
masses would have to make their living with their hands, and he also
believed that it was important for them to develop skills which would
help them. While wanting to assist the masses, however, he argued that
the important priority, at the beginning, must be given to training a
leadership elite which he called "the talented tenth." "The Negro race,
like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem
of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the
Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race
that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the
Worst, in their own and other races." This influential aristocracy would
include scholars who would unearth the facts about the race and its
problems. It would provide leaders who would examine those facts, make
key decisions, and lead the race forward. This elite would also include
professionals and businessmen who would set an example of good
citizenship for the whole community.
Moreover, the achievements of "the talented tenth" would provide living
evidence that the racial stereotypes held by white bigots were untrue.
This would lead gradually to the acceptance of "the talented tenth"
within the majority community, and they would provide the wedge which
would break open the walls of prejudice and discrimination forever.
His work at Atlanta University was only one of the ways by which he
strove to build "the talented tenth." In 1905 DuBois and several others
had founded the Niagara Movement to provide a common platform from which
to speak. They also intended it to become the framework within which they
could exchange their ideas. In it "the talented tenth" tried to oppose
the policies of conciliation and submission which were being propounded
by Booker T. Washington. However, in 1906 Atlanta was rocked by a race
riot which shook DuBois's faith in reason and scholarship as a panacea.
In the very city in which he lived and where his influence should have
been strongest, white bigotry exploded, and mobs roamed the streets for
days beating Afro-American citizens and burning their homes. DuBois began
to wonder whether scholarly discovery of the truth was enough.
Following another race riot in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908 and the
founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, DuBois left his post at Atlanta to become the director of
publicity and research for the N.A.A.C.P. While continuing his interest
in scholarly research, his new job involved him in the aggressive
exposure and condemnation of discrimination. He became editor of "Crisis"
which he developed into a journal of protest. Instead of a scholar
dispassionately unearthing and publishing his findings, DuBois's new
position made him a passionate journalist and engaged him in a righteous
crusade.
However, some blacks questioned the wisdom of entrusting their future to
a biracial organization like the N.A.A.C.P. When it was formed, Monroe
Trotter refused to join it, claiming that its white membership would
blunt its efficiency and militancy. The fact that for many years DuBois
was the only black on its executive board led many to wonder whether it
had genuine biracial participation in its decision making.
Later, Ralph J. Bunche, professor of political science, U. N. diplomat,
and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, attacked the N.A.A.C.P. on the same
grounds. He argued that its dependence on white middle-class leaders, to
provide financial backing, the sympathy of a large segment of the public,
and on favorable court decisions prevented it from achieving significant
results. He claimed that whenever a controversial crisis arose, it would
be prohibited from taking a truly militant position. Even if its white
leadership was capable of making such a radical decision, it was always
forced to consider the effect of an action on its white, middle-class,
liberal financial backers.
Bunche also criticized the N.A.A.C.P. for relying on the courts and the
Constitution for support. He claimed that the Constitution was a brief,
general document which always required interpretation to relate it to
specific, contemporary issues. This interpretation, he maintained, was
always shared by public opinion. While the courts' understanding of the
Constitution might not always conform precisely to the majority opinion,
the influential, vocal, and dominant segment of the public inevitably
influenced the courts' thinking on important subjects. While in
individual cases it might even contradict this force, in the long run the
Constitution could never be more than what the vocal majority wanted it
to be. Bunche believed that the N.A.A.C.P. thinking was always sensitive
to the feelings of the white middle class, and therefore could never
afford to alienate that group. At the same time, he believed that racism
was so ingrained in the white mentality that it would have to receive a
series of hard jolts if significant changes were to occur.
In the final analysis, he said, the N.A.A.C.P. would have to bargain and
conciliate. Like Booker T. Washington, he felt that it could not afford
to be as militant as was necessary. At about the same time DuBois,
himself, became disillusioned with the gradual conciliatory approach of
the N.A.A.C.P. While he still wanted to work for a integrated society, he
had lost faith in the effectiveness of a biracial organization to achieve
significant change. In an article which he wrote in Crisis before
resigning from the N.A.A.C.P., he suggested that black separatism or
black unity could provide a more solid front with which to attack
discrimination and segregation than cooperation with white society. His
goal, he insisted, was still to make ten million of his people free. He
wanted to help them break the bondage of economic oppression, to shake
off the chains of ignorance, to gain their full political rights, and to
become exempt from the insults of discrimination and segregation.
This kind of freedom, he maintained, was not inconsistent with
self-organization for self-advancement. He wanted to see the
Afro-American community develop control over its own churches, schools,
social clubs, and businesses. This was not, DuBois insisted, a surrender
to segregation. He believed that a community which controlled its own
basic institutions was in a better position to make its own decisions and
work for its own advancement. This solidarity and cooperation was
necessary to achieve significant change resulting in an integrated
society. Indirectly, he admitted that this was a shift away from his
concept of "the talented tenth." The assumption that an educated and
cultured elite would be accepted within white society had proved to be
erroneous. To the contrary, he noted, whites often feared educated blacks
as much or more than uneducated ones. "The talented tenth" had not even
gained token acceptance. Therefore DuBois shifted to a concept of a group
solidarity instead of an elite leadership. This concept of group
cooperation must not be confused with that of Washington. DuBois's type
of solidarity was to be the platform from which to assert one's manhood
even if it meant personal deprivation:
"Surely then, in this period of frustration and disappointment, we must
turn from negation to affirmation, from the ever-lasting 'No' to the
ever-lasting 'Yes.' Instead of sitting, sapped of all initiative and
independence; instead of drowning our originality in imitation of
mediocre white folks; instead of being afraid of ourselves and
cultivating the art of skulking to escape the Color Line; we have got to
renounce a program that always involves humiliating self-stultifying
scrambling to crawl somewhere where we are not wanted; where we crouch
panting like a whipped dog. We have got to stop this and learn that on
such a program they cannot build manhood. No, by God, stand erect in a
mud-puddle and tell the white world to go to hell, rather than lick boots
in a parlor."
Both Walter White and James Weldon Johnson took on the task of countering
DuBois's position. Johnson argued that DuBois ended where Washington
began. He noted that the conflict between integration into a biracial
society and withdrawal into black separatism had existed throughout
American history. There had always been a minority who wanted to build a
separate community, but he said that what was favored by the majority was
to gain entrance into American society. Yet the daily insults which were
felt even by the most avid integrationists led them to curse white
society and, at times, to consider retreat into isolationism. According
to his point of view, Johnson pointed out, isolationism had to be based
on economics and although one could talk about black capitalism and could
even develop some prospering businesses, the economic realities favored
mass production and economic interdependence. Separate black institutions
were always contingent institutions which were subservient to the country
as a whole. Therefore they could never really be free or independent.
The separate society would always be subject to external control by the
larger economic and political institutions on which it relied. Johnson
also noted that integrationists like himself had been charged with
failing to see the intensity of the institutional racism which existed
all about them. He denied this and claimed that racism and discrimination
were patently obvious. To the contrary, he suggested that the real danger
was in overemphasizing their importance and becoming paranoid.
After the Second World War, DuBois Joined the N.A.A.C.P. staff for
another short period. However, his disillusionment with society had
deepened, and he was ready to consider even more radical solutions than
before. He had become increasingly convinced that racism was a world
problem and not merely an American problem. The series of Pan-African
Congresses which he had helped to organize forced him to see a connection
between American racism and European imperialism in Africa. At the same
time, communism was representing itself as the foe of both racism and
imperialism, and for many of the oppressed peoples throughout the world
the communist claim had become attractive. To the N.A.A.C.P. it seemed
that DuBois's new "pink" ideas and associations were not good for its
image, and it asked him to resign. The government charged DuBois with
failing to register the "Peace Information Center", where he was
employed, as an agent for a foreign principal. Although acquitted, the
harassment deepened his cynicism and hostility. Finally, he became a
communist, and he moved to Ghana in 1960. He died there in 1963. As a
young scholar, DuBois had begun by believing that reason and research
would dispel ignorance and prejudice. Obviously, prejudice was not so
easily eradicated by reason alone. "The talented tenth," which was to
lead the Afro-American community into the mainstream of American life,
had not been successful. White bigots were especially antagonized by
educated blacks. When DuBois had advocated black solidarity, it had
failed to take root because the intellectuals had become alienated from
the masses. The black bourgeoisie had been hindered by their color from
assimilating into white society, and their newly acquired education,
values, and middle-class style of life prevented them from returning to
their people. Finally, DuBois's work with the N.A.A.C.P., while it
achieved some significant results, failed to bring about the kind of
structural social change he desired. Despairing of bring about racial
advancement in America, DuBois decided to work for it in Africa.
Marcus Garvey: The Trumpet of Pride
Marcus Garvey's personality differed markedly from that of both Booker T.
Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. Washington's image was one of humility
and courageousness bordering, many believed, on obsequiousness. DuBois
projected the picture of a self-confident, hostile, and reserved
individual. In contrast, Garvey was easy-going and flamboyant. The
personalities of both Washington and DuBois minimized the fact that they
were black. On one hand, Washington appeared to be a man who knew his
place and who did not intrude as an individual or a Negro into any
situation. On the other hand, DuBois had shaken off the habits of both
the "house nigger" and the "field nigger" in order to adopt the
characteristics of a cold intellectual which was more in keeping with the
Anglo-Saxon character. Garvey, however, flaunted his blackness wherever
he went. Black pride and black identity were the cornerstones of his
philosophy, and they vibrated through everything he said and did. He was
not ashamed of the personality characteristics of the lower classes, and
he readily identified with them. It was the black middle class, which had
adopted the life style of the mainstream of white society, that earned
his scorn.
Marcus Garvey was born in St. Anne's Bay, Jamaica, in August, 1887. His
parents were of unmixed African descent. His ancestors had belonged to
the Maroons, a group of slaves who had escaped and established their own
community in the Jamaican hills. They fought so well and had been so
thoroughly organized that the British found it necessary to grant them
their independence in 1739. Garvey was very proud of this heritage and
of his unmixed ancestry. Jamaican society was structured hierarchically
along color lines. The whites were at the top, mulattoes in the middle,
and blacks at the bottom. The mulattoes enjoyed displaying and projecting
their superiority over the blacks. In turn, Garvey was scornful of the
mulattoes, and he distrusted all people with light skin throughout his
life.
As a young man, Garvey began making his living as a printer's helper in a
large Kingston printing firm and worked his way up to foreman. His
leadership ability became evident when, during a walkout, the workers
chose him to lead the strike. He had been the only foreman to join the
workers, and the company later black-listed him for it. The union failed
to come to his aid, and thereafter he distrusted labor organizations as a
source of help for his people.
He then traveled extensively around Central and South America, staying
briefly in several large cities and supporting himself by his trade.
Wherever he went, he found blacks being persecuted and mistreated. In
1912 he crossed the Atlantic and spent some time in London. There he met
large numbers of Africans and became interested in their plight as well.
While he was there, he was influenced by a Negro Egyptian author named
Duse Mohammed Ali. His ideas further intensified Garvey's interest in
Africa. At the same time, Garvey read Booker T. Washington's "Up From
Slavery" and was impressed with his philosophy of self-help and moral
uplift.
By this time, Garvey had become aware that black people were persecuted
all around the world in the West Indies, in Central America, in South
America, in the United States, and even in Africa, their homeland. When
he returned to Jamaica, he determined to establish an organization to
work for the improvement of the conditions of black people the world
over. The result was the founding, in 1914, of the "Universal Negro
Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League".
In 1916, Garvey came to the United States to solicit the support of
Afro-Americans. He had hoped to get the backing of Booker T. Washington
with whom he had already corresponded, but, unfortunately, Washington
died the previous year.
In the United States Garvey found the Afro-American community ready to
support his program of encouraging aggressive racial pride. The hopes
which had accompanied the end of slavery, half a century earlier, had
turned to ashes. Then, thousands moved from the rural South to the urban
North to escape the growth of segregation and to find economic
advancement. In the "promised land," they were continually confronted by
socially sanctioned segregation, constant racial insults, and relentless
job discrimination.
In 1919 white race hatred exploded in race riots all across the country.
In that year, there were also some seventy lynchings, mostly black, and
some of them were soldiers who had Just returned from defending their
country. Urban whites resented the influx of rural blacks from the South
who were pouring into their cities, and they tried to confine the
newcomers to dilapidated, older neighborhoods. To do this, they were
quite willing to resort to violence, and, between 1917 and 1921 Chicago
was struck with a rash of house bombings as whites tried to hold the
line. During these years, there was one racially motivated bombing every
twenty days.
In the midst of such conditions, white America did not seem very
beautiful, and black pride, black identity, and black solidarity had an
appeal which was novel. Chapters of the Universal Negro Improvement
Association sprang up all across the country. Although there has been
considerable debate about the number of members in the U.N.I.A., it was
clearly the largest mass organization in Afro-American history. Its
membership has been estimated between two and four million. In any case,
its sympathizers and well-wishers were ubiquitous. The "respectable"
N.A.A.C.P. never reached such grass-roots support, and even with its
white liberal financing, its capital was much smaller than that which
Garvey was able to tap from the lower-class blacks alone.
Garvey advocated a philosophy of race redemption. He said that blacks
needed a nation of their own where they could demonstrate their abilities
and develop their talents. He believed that every people should have its
own country. The white man had Europe, and the black man should have
Africa. Race redemption did not mean that all blacks must return to
Africa. However, when there was a prosperous, independent African nation,
blacks throughout the world would be treated with respect. He noted that
Englishmen and Frenchmen were not lynched, but that blacks, in contrast,
were treated like lepers. Garvey did plan to encourage those blacks who
had particularly useful skills or who desired to return to Africa to do
so, in order to become the back-bone of this new prosperous black nation.
Garvey was harshly critical of the leadership in the Afro-American
community. With the exception of Booker T. Washington, they had all
advocated social equality, intermarriage, and fraternization. Garvey said
that these only led to increased racial friction, He argued that racial
purity for both whites and blacks was superior to racial integration,
Blacks should also be proud of their race and their ancestry. Africa was
not a dark and degenerate continent; instead it was a place of which to
be proud.
To demonstrate this, Garvey adopted African clothes and hair style long
before they became popular. The black bourgeoisie was shocked and ashamed
by his blatant display. Whites were totally incapable of understanding
why anyone would try to glorify blackness and the African heritage. To
them, he seemed merely a clown. However, to the black masses who had no
hope of achieving middle-class respectability, his pride in blackness
came as a release. Instead of a life buried in shame, he offered them
pride and dignity. Instead of being considered "nobodies," he gave them a
sense of identity. In place of weakness, he offered solidarity and
strength. These ideas spread through the ghettoes of large American urban
centers like a fever. In 1920 the Universal Negro Improvement Association
held its annual convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
There were 25,000 delegates in attendance. Garvey told them that he
planned to organize the four hundred million blacks of the world into one
powerful unit and to plant the banner of freedom in Africa. In response,
the convention elected him as the Provisional President of Africa.
Garvey's black separatism led, naturally enough, to black capitalism.
Businesses connected with the U.N.I.A. sprang up all across the country.
They were usually small enterprises: grocery stores, laundries, and
restaurants. Larger businesses included a printing house and a steamship
line. The New York World, which was begun in 1918, was the only black
daily in existence at that time. After its demise, Garvey began The
Black Man, which was published monthly. Although most of these businesses
only served to sink Negro roots deeper in American society, the purpose
of the Black Star Steamship Line was, eventually, to provide a means of
transportation for those who desired to return to Africa. The black
middle class felt that Garvey was hurting its image. White politicians
were nervous about the existence of such a large and potentially powerful
organization, especially when it was led by a man like Garvey whom they
could not understand. When the steamship line ran into financial trouble,
many were convinced that Garvey had been defrauding the ignorant masses.
After a power struggle within the U.N.I.A., Eason, who had led the fight,
was murdered in New Orleans. Two Garveyites were accused of the crime,
and opposition to the movement grew even stronger. Finally, with the
urging of middle-class Negroes, the government brought Garvey to trial
for using the mails to defraud. He insisted on being his own lawyer, and
he took great pleasure in harassing the witnesses and haranguing the
jury. When he realized that this was undermining his own case, he began
taking advice from a white lawyer. Nevertheless, he was fined $1,000 and
given a sentence of up to five years in prison. In 1925, he was sent to
the Atlanta Penitentiary. At that point, many of his opponents had second
thoughts about his case and asked the government to reopen it. President
Coolidge commuted the sentence, but as soon as he was released Garvey was
again arrested and was deported as an undesirable alien.
As the movement had been largely dependent on Garvey's magnetic
personality, the organization began to dissolve as soon as he left the
country. Garvey tried to establish a worldwide movement with its base in
Jamaica, but a power fight for control with the New York leadership
developed. The outbreak of the Second World War further diminished the
influence of his organization. Garvey died in London in June, 1940.
Both James Weldon Johnson and W. E. B. DuBois claimed that emigration of
blacks from America to Africa was merely a form of escapism. (Ironically
DuBois's disillusionment drove him to Africa some thirty years later. )
Johnson argued that a small independent African nation would have to be
dependent on Europe and America for capital. Therefore Garvey's program
could not achieve the kind of freedom and equality which it claimed.
Johnson maintained that it would still be subject to oppression from
white imperialism. As such, the nation would only be an underdeveloped
area dependent on external financing and continually subjected to
economic exploitation. In foreign affairs it would always be small and
weak, and it would have to depend on some stronger ally for its defense.
It would only become a pawn for the great powers, all of which were white
Europeans or Americans. Johnson claimed that a separate African nation
would not provide the kind of power base which Garvey promised.
Although Garvey had, overnight, created the largest mass organization in
Afro-American history, it crumbled almost as quickly as it had been
built. The movement had been overly dependent on his personality.
However, Garvey cannot be dismissed so easily. Although his movement
disintegrated rapidly, the interest in black identity and black pride
which he had sparked, lingered on. Lacking a structure within which to
operate, it was not very obvious to the external observer. Nevertheless,
his ideas have clearly provided the spawning ground from which more
recent organizations have developed.
A. Philip Randolph: The Trumpet of Mobilization
The leadership style of A. Philip Randolph differed from that of
Washington, DuBois, and Garvey. His interest in providing jobs and skills
for the working class was akin to that of Washington. His aggressive
outspoken manner was more like that of DuBois. While lacking the
flamboyant style of Garvey, he was able to work among the ranks of the
working class and gain their acceptance. He, too, has demonstrated
considerable ability in mass organization. Like DuBois, he wanted to use
black solidarity as a wedge with which to break through discrimination
into a biracial society and not as an end in itself.
Asa Philip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida, in 1889. He was
raised in a strict religious home. His father was a local minister but he
also had to hold down another full-time job in order to support his
family. Early in the century, Randolph moved north and attended City
College in New York. During the First World War, Randolph, with Chandler
Owen, edited The Messenger and made it into an outspoken vehicle for
their own opinions. In its pages, they espoused a radical, American brand
of democratic socialism. They supported the International Workers of the
World, which many viewed as being alien and communistic, and they
questioned the advisability of Negroes supporting the war effort. They
were charged with undermining the national defense, and they spent some
time in Jail. Both advocated a working-class solidarity of blacks and
whites which would resist exploitation by capitalism. In their view,
every nonunion man, black or white, was a potential scab and a potential
threat to every union man, black or white. While the white and black dogs
were fighting over the bone, they pointed out, the yellow capitalist dog
ran off with it. The Messenger encouraged blacks to join unions, and it
tried hard to persuade the unions to eliminate discrimination. The view
they propagated was that unions could not afford to be based on the color
line; instead they should be based on a class line.
Randolph and Owen attacked Samuel Gompers and the A. F. of L. for failing
to be truly biracial. Randolph criticized DuBois and the N.A.A.C.P. for
their lack of concern with the real day-to-day problems of the masses. He
charged that the N.A.A.C.P. was led by people who were neither blacks nor
workers, and that they were incapable, therefore, of articulating the
needs of the masses. He argued that an organization for the welfare of
the Irish would never be led by Jews. Therefore, he suggested that an
organization for the welfare of Blacks should not be led by whites. He
was especially critical of the gradualist, peaceful policy which DuBois
appeared to support during the early years of the N.A.A.C.P. He
questioned DuBois's professed stand against violence and revolution.
Randolph said: "Doubtless DuBois is the only alleged leader of an
oppressed group of people in the world today who condemns revolution." To
Randolph, violence and revolution were not anti-American, but were
justified by the Declaration of Independence.
During the twenties, Randolph tried several schemes to increase black and
white cooperation in unions. Along with Chandler Owen, he founded the
National Association for the Promotion of Unionism among Negroes. The
most successful of Randolph's efforts came in 1925 when he established
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Brotherhood appeared to
demonstrate the futility of his basic thesis. Randolph, who believed in
biracial unionism, had established, in the Brotherhood, an organization
which, by the nature of the occupation, was to be an exclusively black
union. He found himself being pushed relentlessly away from biracial
unionism into supporting racial organizations for racial advancements.
In 1936, he played a key role in forming the National Negro Congress. It
was a broad alliance of all kinds of groups to advance the welfare of the
race. Although it did not receive the backing of the N.A.A.C.P., the
Urban League, an even more conservative organization, became a
cornerstone in the Congress. The Urban League has always been primarily
interested in securing employment for the Negro working class. During the
thirties, the communists adopted a united-front policy, and they tried to
infiltrate the N.N.C. Some of the left-wing unions which did support the
N.N.C., were largely white.
Randolph's talent for mass mobilization was demonstrated most clearly in
his efforts to organize two gigantic marches on Washington in order to
dramatize Afro-American needs and to pressure the government into action.
As American industry began to gear up for war production at the beginning
of the Second World War, it needed to find new sources of labor. The
Afro-American community was eager to support the war effort, particularly
because it meant fighting Hitler's racism. But they were also eager to
find jobs. However, defense industries in America continued to display
their own brand of racial discrimination. Many of them said quite openly
that, while they were willing to hire blacks, they would only give them
menial positions regardless of their skill and training. It became clear
that racism had to be fought at home and abroad.
Many tried to get the government to take action, but it seemed more
concerned with protecting its political image and with avoiding
alienating the party's financial backers. In January, 1941, Randolph
suggested a mass march on Washington to demand government action against
discrimination both in government services and in defense industry. The
idea took root, and a mass march was being organized for July. On June
25, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 which forbade
further discrimination either in government services or defense
industries, on the grounds of race, creed, or nationality. While some
discrimination still continued, the order and the Fair Employment
Practices Commission, which resulted from it, played an important role in
opening large numbers of new jobs to the Afro-American community. The
planned march, which will be discussed more fully in a later chapter, was
then called off. Although the march was canceled, Randolph hoped to keep
the March on Washington Movement alive. He wanted to create a permanent
mobilized community. This, too, failed to materialize, but, if it had not
been for the war, his efforts might have been more successful. In
September, 1942, Randolph called a meeting of the March on Washington
Movement before which he outlined his program. He told the conference
that slavery had not ended because it was evil, but because it was
violently overthrown, Similarly, he said that if they wanted to obtain
their rights, they would have to be willing to fight, go to jail, and die
for them. Rights would not be granted; they must be taken if need be. His
plan was to organize a permanent mass movement on a nationwide basis and
to conduct protests, marches, and boycotts. This was an adaptation of
some of Gandhi's techniques to the Afro-American problem.
The March on Washington Movement was to be an all-Negro movement. Yet,
Randolph did not intend it to be anti-white. He pointed to the fact that
every organization must have its own purposes, that Catholic groups
concentrated on their interests in the same way as labor groups strove to
gain their objectives. Any oppressed people must assume the major
responsibility for furthering their goals. They might accept help and
cooperation from outside, but they must, in the final analysis, rely on
self-organization and self-help. One of the by-products of this, Randolph
believed, would be the development of self-reliance within the
Afro-American community and the destruction of the slave mentality.
Although individual blacks within the community could join other
organizations, and while the movement itself might cooperate with other
organizations, the March on Washington Movement itself was to be
exclusively for blacks. It was a racial movement for racial advancement.
Randolph went on to envision an organization with a challenging action
program. Millions of supporters would be divided into a network of small
block units. Each would be headed by a block captain. This would
facilitate instant, mass mobilization. At a moment's notice, a chain of
command could be activated, and millions of marchers would be in the
streets. Randolph also envisioned repeated, gigantic marches aimed at
Washington and state capitals. He could also see smaller, regular marches
on the city halls and other establishments in dozens of cities across the
country. To him it was desirable for blacks to picket the White House, if
need be, until the nation came to see that blacks were willing to
sacrifice everything to be counted as men. Randolph also wanted to
encourage the mobilization of registration and voting.
Besides being reminiscent of the Gandhi nonviolent campaign in India,
Randolph's March on Washington Movement, although it never materialized,
foreshadowed the civil rights movement of the late fifties and sixties.
This later civil rights movement, however, was directed by several
separate organizations which, at times, were involved in power fights
with one another. It lacked the central organization and national,
instant mobilization which Randolph had in mind. It also included a
substantial number of white supporters and leaders which Randolph had
excluded from his program. He had predicted that this kind of white
participation would back down in times of crisis and thereby emasculate
the movement. This is precisely what the Black Power advocates of the
late sixties claimed had happened to the civil rights movement, and they
gave the same reasons for its collapse.
In 1947, Randolph cooperated with Grant Reynolds in organizing the League
for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation; its aim
was to encourage draft resisters objecting to serving in a segregated
army. Randolph was also one of a delegation which told President Truman
that America could not afford to fight colored people in Asia with the
army as it then existed. Truman, then, took the first real steps in
ending military segregation. In 1963, Randolph and Bayard Rustin did
organize a massive march on Washington. Most of the publicity, however,
went to Martin Luther King, Jr., its main speaker. This march
contributed significantly to the passage of civil rights legislation.
However, most of Randolph's efforts continued to be in the realm of union
organization. In 1957, he was made a vice president in the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
and a member of its executive council. Two years later, he was censured
for charging organized labor with racism.
Although Randolph was not able to achieve his dream of mass mobilization,
he did display considerable organizational ability. In part, his ideas
have been put into effect by subsequent groups, and his philosophy was
similar to that which became popular in the 1960s. The whole civil rights
movement bore a marked resemblance to his philosophy, and undoubtedly it
drew considerable motivation from it. The idea of an all-black mass
organization, with a vast network of local action groups participating in
it, is still alive. He had envisioned a grass-roots black power movement
a quarter of a century before it became popular. Although dozens of such
groups have sprung up across the country, they still lack the kind of
mass mobilization and national coordination which he had planned. His was
to have been a militant, all-black movement without its becoming
anti-white. It was to teach self-reliance to the Afro-American community.
Local control and power were to be used to achieve freedom and civil
rights within a genuinely biracial society.