W.E.B. DuBois major views expressed in "The Talented Tenth"

Author: Sharon Williams

1. Importance of educating the upper crust

The Negro Race would be saved by its exceptional men, trained to the knowledge of the world and man’s relation to it. The best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land. Fresh from inspirational training in colleges, they were to return to their communities, leaders in business, and the professions, and above all, leaders in bringing the blessings of civilization to the Negro millions.

DuBois proposed child bearing and adoption strategies to build the Talented Tenth. The rehabilitation of the indispensable family group by deliberate planning of marriage with mates selected for heredity, physique, with less insistence on colour comeliness, or romantic sex lure miscalled love. Youth should marry young and have a limited number of healthy children.

- "Talented Tenth" speech, http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/dubo_b05.htm

2. Need to reform the church

"The church aided and abetted the Negro slave trade; the church was the bulwark of the American slavery; and the church today is the strongest seat of racial and colour prejudice. If one hundred of the best colored folk of the United States should seek to apply for membership in any white church in this land tomorrow, 999 out of every 1000 ministers would lie to keep them out. They would not only do this, but would openly and brazenly defend their actions as worthy as followers of Jesus Christ.

"Negroes need to work out their own projects for moving ahead, not assuming that God or his vice regent, the white, will do it for them."

• Religion, "W.E.B. DuBois," Broderick, p.101

"Indeed the demand for college-bred men by a school like Tuskegee, ought to make Mr. Booker T. Washington the firmest friend of higher training. Here he has as helpers the son of a Negro Senator, trained in Greek and humanities, and graduated at Harvard; the son of a Negro Congressman and lawyer, trained in Latin and mathematics, and graduated at Oberlin; he has as his wife, a woman who studied Virgil and Homer in the same Fisk classroom with me; he has as college chaplain, a classical graduate of Atlanta, as teacher of Science, a graduate of Fisk; as teacher of history, a graduate of Smith – indeed some thirty of his chief teachers are college graduates, and instead of studying French grammar in the midst of weeds, or buying pianos for dirty cabins, they are at Mr. Washington’s right hand helping him in a noble work."

-The Seventh Son, Lester, p.403

1. Mr. Washington insists on thrift and self respect, but at the same time counsels a silent submission to civic inferiority such as is bound to sap the manhood of any race in the long run.
2. He advocates common school and industrial training and deprecates institutions of higher learning; but neither the Negro common schools, nor Tuskegee itself could remain open a day were it not for teachers in Negro colleges, or trained by their graduates.
3. Mr. Washington is striving nobly to make Negroes artisans, businessmen, and property owners, but it is utterly impossible, under modern competitive methods, for workingmen and property owners to defend their rights and exist without the right of suffrage.
 

Bibliography

Broderick, Francis L. W.E.B. DuBois: Negro Leader in a Time of Crisis, Stanford University Press

DuBois, W.E.B, "Talented Tenth Speech," http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/dubo605.html

DuBois, W.E.B "The Souls of Black Folk ," "W.E.B. DuBois on Booker T. Washington." http://www.bartleby.com/11413htm1

Lester, Julius. The Seventh Son: The Thought and Writings of W.E.B. DuBois, Random House