The Leadership of W.E.B. Du Bois and the N.A.A.C.P.

The concept of leadership and more specifically racial leadership is similar to the concept of race itself: it is widely spoken of and is debated in many varying arenas, but a precise definition is rarely given. Leaders, it should be remembered, very seldom emerge prior to the movement which they then speak on behalf of. In the overwhelming majority of historical examples, it is the case that ‘leaders’, whether they be social, political, economic or cultural leaders, emerge from movements which they later go on to represent in some capacity.

If we consider this in relation to the life of W.E.B. Du Bois between 1899 and 1934[1], then it is plain to see that an analysis of the general feeling of the time must be conducted, in order to successfully characterise Du Bois’s “leadership” of African Americans[2]. In Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois concerns himself in the third chapter entirely with the leadership epistemology of Booker T. Washington, who at the time was the foremost African American contributor on the race issue. There is an underlying sense early on in “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” that a new style of leadership is urgently required -- one which is more representative of the African American community than the Washingtonian epistemology, which is commonly referred to as accomodationist today. Du Bois identifies tensions within the African American community which cannot be expressed or communicated to the larger American world; the tension exists because, according to Du Bois, there was never any whole-hearted support among African Americans for Booker T. Washington. As Du Bois noted, “it startled to hear a Negro advocating such a programme … it silenced if it did not convert the Negroes themselves.[3]” The silence, Du Bois argued, was doing untold damage to the plight of the African in America. One can only speculate as to the personal reasons why Du Bois went on in the coming years to speak on behalf of these people (and in opposition to Washington), but the fact that he did suggests that the development of his leadership grew out of a feeling of contempt for the status quo of the time.

Kilson (2000) outlines the theoretical differences between Washington’s leadership and Du Bois’s leadership: he classifies Washington as favouring a social organisation type leadership model and refers to Du Bois’s leadership as guidance type or mobilisation type leadership[4]. Kilson interprets Booker T.’s address to the 1895 Atlanta Exposition as a clear rejection of the mobilisation type leadership which would later characterise Du Bois’s leadership, and he is certainly right to do so. By insisting that citizens of the South of both races should “cast down [their] buckets where they are[5]” and stating that “in all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential[6]”, Washington devotes himself to the acceptance of the present conditions of the South and is happy to accept gradual progress.

Moore (2003) characterises Washington’s Atlanta Compromise speech as being conclusive of Washington’s overall political ideology. Her observation that “Washington stress[ed] conservative themes about how blacks could use the [Atlanta] exposition to showcase their accomplishments rather than push for political rights[7]” underscores the lack of forethought in Washington’s stance. His concern was about showing what the black man had achieved in the past, in the belief that the white man would benevolently bestow full human and civil rights on both black men and women, without explicit political pressure from black America.

The power of the Tuskegee machine made it difficult if not wholly impossible for any other African American to challenge Washington’s accomodationist policy. As a result, without any contest Washington’s epistemology became the white status quo interpretation of the race problem from the African American point of view. In the period building up to the establishment of the Niagara Movement, which would lay the basis for the NAACP, Du Bois touches upon a frustration which marked the first decade of the new century: “usually … criticism has not found open expression.[8]”

What Washington failed to take into account was that by accepting the present social conditions of the South, he was asking the African American to remain a second class citizen for as long as the white race felt it necessary to ‘keep them in their place’, to use a popular phrase of the time. This fact did not escape the notice of Du Bois: “Mr. Washington’s programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races.[9]” When we therefore consider this explicit disfranchisement of the African American (especially in the South) in 1895, Washington’s speech to the Atlanta Exposition reads almost as a preface to the ruling in the U.S Supreme Court case of Plessy vs. Ferguson of 1896, which of course made segregation constitutional as long as facilities for both races were ‘separate but equal’.

Kilson neglects to suggest a reason as to why Washington so explicitly abandoned a mobilisation type leadership model, and why he so eagerly embraced a leadership style built around social organisation. His well-publicised involvement with white philanthropists is, I think, only one of the reasons. Another contributing factor can be found in Washington’s upbringing[10].

Booker T. Washington was born a slave, who, once freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, spent his life searching for an education. Naturally, he became principle of a new school at Tuskegee when the opportunity arose, and from there he sought to help people of his own race. He spent his life teaching essentially manual labour skills, believing they were the best skills to help African Americans prove their worth to white America. In short, Washington rose up from the lowest class (what in today’s society would be the working class), and I would suggest that this left him unable to envision a society where pure equality equated to an absolute meritocracy. To offer guidance, it is necessary to be able to see the road ahead and to see where you are going; Washington probably felt himself unable to offer such guidance because the United States at that time was not a classless meritocracy.

In contrast to this, the growth of W.E.B. Du Bois as a leader begins with him being brought up in the heart of New England, and enjoying privileges Washington could have only dreamed of when he was a slave child. His experiences in Massachusetts showed him in essence how good life could be, though not completely void of racial discrimination[11]. When he studied at Fisk University, however, he soon learned that some citizens could not live like he had done when growing up because of the colour of their skin. As a consequence, Du Bois was steered by his life experiences towards a guidance type or mobilisation type leadership model because of his class, and how his better than average upbringing meant little or nothing in the South, where his skin colour was the only thing that mattered to white America.

Nevertheless, the drawback for Du Bois was that he was an exception to most people of his race. As White notes: “Unlike Booker T. Washington, Du Bois always felt himself apart from the mass of Negroes and, for significant periods of his life was definitely out of step with orthodox black responses to such issues as socialism, Marxism, and Pan-Africanism.[12]” While Du Bois’s upbringing meant he had the power to vividly convey to them a distinctly better life, it also distanced him from them on the basis of intra-racial class politics. I would suggest that this is the primary reason for Du Bois holding the power to his leadership in his pen[13], and not in stirring orations, as Martin Luther King would become famous for.

In conjunction with this, it can be said that the ideological differences between Du Bois and Washington reflect the personal differences between the two men, and in particular their contrasting upbringings. Early on in his life, Du Bois erred on the side of protest rather than leaning towards accomodationism. As Moore explains: “[Du Bois] wrote stirring calls to arms against racial discrimination in local politics.[14]” Her observation that “Du Bois’s articles for the [New York] Globe reflected what would be the basis of his own philosophy in years to come.[15]” reinforces the idea that a protest movement against racial injustice had been building from as far back as the time of Du Bois’s birth in the 1860’s.

It is possible to read “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” as a Du Boisian manifesto. The style of the essay and the way it is written contributes to this, as Du Bois lists on three separate lines the three things Washington “distinctly asks that the black people give up, at least for the present[16]”; shortly after this, Du Bois lists, in the same way, three unsatisfactory things which have occurred as direct or indirect results of the Washingtonian policy; a triple paradox of Washington’s career is then listed by Du Bois not long after, and then Du Bois lists three things he demands: “Such men feel bound in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things:
1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality.
3. The education of youth according to ability.[17]”
Du Bois does this so as to polarise himself as the direct opposite to Booker T. Washington. The polarisation is spelt out unmistakably to the reader.

Once Washington had passed away in 1915, the accomodationist leadership of African Americans was usurped as the mainstream ideology, though in truth it had begun to die away once the NAACP was born. With Washington’s death, no one stood up and continued to speak on behalf of black conservatives. The growth of Crisis, the journal of the NAACP under the editorship of Du Bois’ had been phenomenal. In November 1910 it had a circulation of 1,000 copies; less than twelve months later it was selling 16,000 copies a month[18]. The Tuskegee machine was finally breached by Du Bois’s charismatic and elegant editorials which stirred the black men who read them.

The philosophy which Crisis embodied stemmed from the Niagara Movement which came into being in July 1905. As General Secretary, Du Bois strongly insisted direct action was a political necessity if the African American race was going to achieve anything, any time soon. As Moore notes, “the focus of the Niagara Movement was to encourage action and open protest to challenge racism and discrimination.[19]” Five years later, Crisis -- the main organ of the NAACP -- was setting out with the same principles of the former movement, indicating only subtle changes in Du Bois’s leadership between 1905 and 1910.

With Crisis and the NAACP now front and centre with regard to the race problem in the United States, Du Bois was free to practice his mobilisation type leadership which would bridge the gap between Washington’s accomodationist leadership and Martin Luther King’s civil rights leadership. Indeed, many of the sentiments Du Bois expressed so forcefully would have not looked out of place in the 1960’s. His plainly spoken attacks on discrimination, lynchings and social disfranchisement elevated Crisis to new heights, as it grew into the best-known black journal in the United States[20]. It was more successful that the poorly-named The Moon, the journal of the Niagara Movement, for two main reasons: first, it had more substantial financial backing. The main characters of the Niagara Movement (John Hope, William Monroe Trotter, F.H.M. Murray et al) had been joined by people who left the Washington camp between 1905 and 1910 (Kelly Miller, Mary Church Terrell, Archibald Grimké[21]). The combination of the two groups into the amalgamation of the NAACP made for a more viable economic organisation.

The second reason was Du Bois’s editorship. His ability to simplify the racial issues made the journal popular among people of his own race, whilst at the same time it made white America sit up and take notice. As Paul Robeson put it: “We Negro students joined the NAACP which Dr. Du Bois helped to organise and build; we read religiously Crisis of which he was editor for so many years, and in which he wrote clearly, constructively and militantly on the complex problems of the American scene.[22]” Without such innovative militantism, the financial clout would not have been able to achieve as much. But with Du Bois at the helm, the journal practically paid for itself by the time of the Great War[23].

Education remained an important concept for Du Bois, and in 1920’s Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil he once more expressed its civilising qualities: “We would say, "No civilized state should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government," and this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it.[24]” Du Bois’s emphasis on the importance of education was similar though not the same to Washington’s, as is mentioned in the next chapter. The difference, however, lies in Du Bois speaking of education as a stepping stone to political involvement and political inclusion, in a country where the black man had been hitherto exiled from the political arena.

Ultimately, however, a leader is not a leader unless he had men following him. The great tragedy of Du Bois’s time as editor of Crisis is that is influence failed to spread further than it did. He was almost always at odds with the NAACP executives, and when he very publicly resigned the editorship of the journal in 1934, in the hope that prominent African Americans would rally around him, he realised he had erred in not attempting to influence the organization more directly[25]. The power of his leadership was expressed in the presentation and clarification of issues from a certain point of view, but ultimately he had no direct say over NAACP policy. His intellectual capacity was never transformed into institutionalised social power through the organisation[26].

Notes

[1] These should be considered as rough bookends only
[2] That is not to say, however, that Du Bois spoke solely on behalf of African Americans. While Du Bois was, to a large degree, “muzzled” by white philanthropists (see chapter three), white liberals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were essential in the founding of the NAACP. Though no study has successfully characterised the role of white men in the formative years of the NAACP, it is sadly beyond the scope of this investigation to do so.
[3] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover. [1903] 1994. p 26
[4] Kilson, Martin. “The Washington and Du Bois Paradigms Reconsidered.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568. (March 2000): p 301-2
[5] Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. New York: Dover [1901] 1995. p 107
[6] Ibid. p 109
[7] Moore, Jacqueline M. Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift. London: S.R. Books. 2003. p 32
[8] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. p 27
[9] Ibid. p 30
[10] This might be a little exaggerated in Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery. As Moore notes, he was probably not quite the country bumpkin he later portrayed himself to have been. (p23)
[11] Moore, Jacqueline M. p 40
[12] White, John. Black leadership in America: From Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson. London: Longman. 1990. p 70
[13] Yancy, Dorothy Couser. “William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’ Atlanta Years: The Human Side – A Study Based upon Oral Sources.” The Journal of Negro History. 63:1. (January 1978): p 65
[14] Moore, Jacqueline M. p 40
[15] Ibid. p 40
[16] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. p 30
[17] Ibid. p 32
[18] White, John. p 55
[19] Moore, Jacqueline M. p 78
[20] Ibid. p 85
[21] As listed in Moore, Jacqueline M. p 84
[22] Foner, Philip S. Ed. Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918-74. New York: Citadel Press [1978] 1987. p 474
[23] Moore, Jacqueline M. p 85
[24] Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. New York: Prometheus Books. [1920] 2003. p 151
[25] Rudwick, Elliot M. “W.E.B. Du Bois in the Role of Crisis Editor.” The Journal of Negro History. 43:3. (July 1958): p 239
[26] Ibid. p 239

Education for the Uplift of a Race

When we think of education, we tend to envision the training of boys and girls in practical skills. These being kills which they might go on and use later in life, possibly forming the basis of a career. In this way, we think of education as “training for life”. Central to the educational paradigm of W.E.B. Du Bois, however, was the notion that education should be the training of life. It is my intention to demonstrate in the following pages how the Du Boisian epistemology of education was innovational, in particular when compared to that of his nemesis, Booker T. Washington. Furthermore, I hope to illustrate that, although the Du Boisian epistemology of education was constantly open and responsive to ever-changing historical and cultural needs[1] -- that despite this, the same clear principles ran throughout: the object of education, as Du Bois saw it, was always manhood; the ultimate goal was constantly the development of men. In particular, he sought to create men who could lead the persons of African origin towards to a more enlightened future.

Du Bois called these leading African Americans the ‘Talented Tenth’, a phrase he would substitute later in life and replace with ‘Guiding Hundredth’. The establishment of this guiding few, he argued, should be the principal concern, and should precede the establishment of industrial schools. Once it was in place, these men would be in a more appropriate position to establish adequate schooling for the ‘masses’.

For Du Bois, education was intertwined with culture, history, economic thought, and social & political philosophy; it was the most pressing problem confronting persons of African origin[2].

Du Bois’s ‘Talented Tenth’ theory has been the most divisive feature of his educational paradigm and has intrigued scholars for over a century now. “The Negro race,” it begins, “like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.[3]” We can see from this that Du Bois believes the solution to the problem of education lies within the race itself. The majority of the most important work has to be carried out by the exceptionals from that race; there is only a limited amount white philanthropists can do. With this comes an implicit challenge to Booker T. Washington, who was closely acquainted with the likes of Rockefeller and Carnegie, whom Washington was able to talk into financially supporting Tuskegee and his other policies. Du Bois’s experience with white philanthropists was not so positive[4]. As the opening paragraph continues, it becomes all the more challenging towards Booker T. Washington’s political ideology and to his stance on education[5]. This should be considered very brave when one remembers Booker T. Washington edited the book in which “The Talented Tenth” appears.

With “The Talented Tenth,” Du Bois’s epistemology becomes directly polarised from Washington’s. By emphasising the need for the educating of African Americans to degree level and higher, he is laying the foundations for what we might call a ‘top-down’ model. “The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving.[6]” The Washington epistemology of education was a ‘bottom-up’ model. It is paradoxical to suggest member of Washington’s Tuskegee Institute could achieve what Washington himself had by attending school there. Washington seemed only too happy to burn the bridges which had carried him to where he was by the turn of the century.

The criteria of what it is to be a part of the talented tenth is explicitly outlined in the essay. As we might expect, the first and most important criterion which has to be met is a college education, although Du Bois probably makes Frederick Douglass exempt from this due to his exceptional circumstances. By the dawn of the twentieth century, Du Bois was banging his fist on the table and demanding the higher education of competent African Americans: “the best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land.[7]” Du Bois was firmly of the opinion that universities were the only institutions capable of passing on the most important knowledge and culture. “No other invention will suffice,” he wrote, “not even trade and industrial schools.[8]” As Gilroy notes: “Du Bois’s image of the Black University is central to [his] argument. In opposition to Washington’s anti-academic emphasis on the technical, vocational, and practical, he defended the idea of higher learning both as a goal in itself and as the foundation upon which a new educational system must be constructed.[9]”

Furthermore, the ‘top-down’ model does not solely concern itself with education. Indeed, it brings with it the civilising force of pure culture -- something which could not be supplied by Washington’s epistemology. “Was there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilised from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters.[10]” Du Bois places education within his overall thought process, supplementing it with history and culture. This is something Booker T. Washington failed to do.

The second criterion which must be adhered to for one to be a part of the talented tenth centres upon members setting aside their personal goals and making private sacrifices, for the public good of African Americans as a race. This is the distinguishing factor between the talented tenth and the black bourgeois, and made it possible to be educated to degree level and be outside the talented tenth. While some academics have slipped into the habit of using “black middle class” and “talented tenth” interchangeably, the two terms have different connotations (though there can be a degree of overlap)[11].

The talented tenth’s relationship to white principals is a complex one and worthy of study. Du Bois points the finger of blame at the dominant race for casting the black man as a stereotypically lazy lay-about, whose life is mired in crime and decadent behaviour. “A silly nation has made them the rule,[12]” he declares. Du Bois makes it the mission of the talented tenth to prove that black men are, indeed, capable of achieving great goals. Du Bois himself is testament to the possibilities of success in black skin.

Yet instead of writing about his own achievements as exemplification of what African Americans could achieve, Du Bois instead highlighted the life and work of Coleridge-Taylor in Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. Forming the first half of “The immortal Child,” this retelling of one of the world’s most famous musicologists of his day is done so in a very Du Boisian way. And by that, I mean it emphasises the ‘Africanness’ of the man, without enforcing stereotypes. “Life to him was neither meat nor drink,” Du Bois tells, “it was creative flame; ideas, plans, melodies glowed within him.[13]”

The selection of someone involved with music should not be understated. In Souls of Black Folk, each chapter begins with bars of music, each one a separate sorrow song. Du Bois’s passion for this music comes out in the final chapter, in which he supplies some of the words to some of the bars. In his summary, Du Bois notes that “the music is far more ancient that the words, and in it we can trace here and there signs of development.[14]” Seventeen years later, Du Bois is telling us about “the tempestuous outpouring of [Coleridge-Taylor’s] spiritual nature.[15]” Du Bois witnesses the (European) training of a man of African origin and he once again hears the texture and spirit of the sorrow songs -- only this time they have benefited from education.

Under the harshness of the institution of slavery, it goes without saying that musical education of any kind was unavailable to the enslaved. According to Du Bois, the wasting of talent and genius which existed then was still manifested in the American psyche in 1920. “We may well talk of the waste of wood and water, of food and fire,” he writes, “but the real and unforgivable waste of modern civilisation is the waste of ability and genius.[16]” Du Bois goes on point out that Coleridge-Taylor was educated in London, and that, sadly, he would most probably have not achieved what he did had he had the misfortune of growing up in the United States. In this way, Du Bois is able to make a strong case for the educating of all African Americans, while emphasising the lacklustre education (so affected by racial discrimination) offered to black people in 1920.

Once he is through reciting the life of Coleridge-Taylor, Du Bois deals briefly with education in a general sense. Nevertheless, his arguments remain the same: “this world has never taken the education of children seriously,[17]” he declares. More specifically, he acknowledges the benefits of education in the ‘modern world’, to use his phrase, but he also criticises it as possessing modern fallacies. He argues for several paragraphs that the monetary cost of education has become of greater importance than the concept of education itself. With the concept being nothing more than epiphenomenal in western society, Du Bois comes to the conclusion that “we have linked money and education inextricably. We assume that only the wealthy have a right to education.[18]” Du Bois draws upon common morals to assert that birth itself is the right to an education, and that money monetary concerns should be only auxiliary.

As has already been conveyed, “The Immortal Child” was published seventeen years after “The Talented Tenth” appeared in The Negro Problem, but prior to both of these Du Bois published “Of the Training of Black Men” in 1903’s Souls of Black Folk. This chapter varies from the two essays I have spoken of previously because it begins with old adages of the meaning of race, with undertones of educational depravity: “The … thought steaming from the death-ship and the curving river is the thought of the older South, -- the sincere and passionate belief that somewhere between men and cattle, God created a tertium quid†, and called it a Negro, -- a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable within its limitations, but straightly foreordained to walk within the Veil.[19]” In a mocking sense, Du Bois stresses what many scientists seriously believed well into the twentieth century: persons of African descent were uneducated and uneducatable. Palaeontologist Fairfield Osborn, for example, assumed it to be obvious that inequalities of intelligence existed within the taxonomy of race[20]. Du Bois steps away from the concept of race quickly, and does not bother to argue this by citing the opinion of George Combe, who, in the midst of the nineteenth century, believed that “what was needed was a vigorous program of education.[21]”

Instead, Du Bois turns his essay into a synthesis of the two works he would write later on in his life; we can view this work as a foundation for what Du Bois would write later in his career. He details the (recently historical) educating of black men in the United States as follows: “The Negro colleges, hurriedly founded, were inadequately equipped, illogically distributed, and of varying efficiency and grade; the normal and high schools were doing little more than common-school work, and the common schools were training but a third of the children who ought to be in them, and training these too often poorly.[22]” Du Bois paints the picture of disorganised educational practices in shambolic institutions. The underlying interpretation of this passage is that this was so because of a lack of any talented tenth; had these men been educated first, and to the highest possible standard, then they would have been able to establish more efficient educational institutions and with greater logic and thought. Furthermore, it is likely more persons of African descent would have gone on to be educated at a higher level than just an industrial school.

At the turn of the century, many were questioning what was wrong with just educating black people solely with institutions like that of Tuskegee Institute. Again, Du Bois had an adequate response to these people with what he would write seventeen years later; without an education of the highest possible standard in classical music from the Royal Academy of Music, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor would not have evolved in to one of the world’s most respected musicologists. But in April 1903, all Du Bois could do was rely upon what he believed education should be: the training of life, and not training for life: “… we have a right to inquire … if after all the industrial school is the final and sufficient answer in the training of the Negro race: and to ask gently, but in all sincerity, the ever-recurring query of the ages, Is not life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?[23]”

Bibliography

Battle, Juan et al. “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Talented Tenth: A Quantative Assessment.” Journal of Black Studies. 32:6. (July 2002): p 654 – 672.

Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. 1920.

Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover. 1994.

Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth” from The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Negroes of Today. 1903

Fitchue, M. Anthony. “Locke and Du Bois: Two Major Black Voices Muzzled by Philanthropic Organisations.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 14. (Winter 1996): p 111 – 116.

Gates, Henry Louis. The Future of Race.

Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso. 1993.

Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America, New Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. 1997.

Rabaka, Reiland. “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Evolving Africana Philosophy of Education.” Journal of Black Studies. 33:4. (March 2003): p 399 – 449.

Notes

[1] Reiland, Rabaka, p 419
[2] Reiland, Rabaka, p 399
[3] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth”
[4] For a good analysis of white philanthropic censorship, see Fitchue, M. Anthony. “Locke and Du Bois: Two Major Black Voices Muzzled by Philanthropic Organisations.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 14. (Winter 1996): p 111 – 116.
[5] Gates, Henry Louis. The Future of Race. P 128
[6] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth”
[7] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth”
[8] Ibid.
[9] Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. P 121
[10] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth”
[11] Battle, Juan. P 658
[12] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Talented Tenth”
[13] Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil
[14] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 157
[15] Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil
[16] Ibid.
[17] Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil
[18] Ibid. † literally, third something; a third something of ambiguous status
[19] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 55
[20] Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America, New Edition. p 388
[21] Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America, New Edition. p 73
[22] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 58
[23] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 58

W.E.B. Du Bois on the Meaning of Race

In “The Conservation of Races,” an essay written for the American Negro Academy in 1897, W.E.B. Du Bois defines race to be:

“a vast family of human beings, generally of common blood and language, always of common history, traditions and impulses, who are both voluntarily and involuntarily striving together for the accomplishment of certain more or less vividly conceived ideals of life.[1]”

This definition is vastly different from other definitions of the time. In the late nineteenth century, the emphasis was on the biological element of a racial construction. While Du Bois didn’t completely disregard this, he moved away from a purely Eurocentric way of thinking towards a synthesis of African, Asian and European thought to create his own unique epistemology.

The initial development of this epistemology can be traced through “The Conservation of Races.” In paragraph three, Du Bois insists that scholars should “seriously consider … what is the real meaning of race,[2]” which suggests nothing has been proposed which can be considered a serious conclusive answer.

In the decades prior to 1897, an understanding of race had developed in conjunction with social Darwinism which emphasised the physical. Du Bois was just one of a number of men trying to get beyond this, but the great shift of emphasis from biology to social process as an explanation for cultural differences was a gradual one:[3] this was especially true in the United States, where the idea that the Negroes might be a separate species made a more determined last stand[4]. For his part, Du Bois suggests that the work of Thomas Henry Huxley and Raetzel “is nothing more than an acknowledgment that … the differences between men do not explain all the differences of their history.[5]” Not only did Du Bois (rightly) assume Huxley’s classifications to be overly broad and incomplete[6], he also went on to demonstrate that there was more to races than just the physical.

Du Bois’s searches for a more complex understanding of racial constructions led him away from a European way of thinking, and thus away from the natural sciences. In paragraph nine of “The Conservation of Races,” he states that “the deeper differences are spiritual, psychical, differences – undoubtedly based on the physical, but infinitely transcending them.[7]” Monteiro (2000) interprets Du Bois as understanding “physical and biological race to be … of little scientific significance.[8]” I would not entirely agree. Du Bois uses the work of the biologists of his generation to inform his own beliefs that being of a race is something all men should be proud of. This unquestionably leads men of the Negro race (Du Bois’s linguistic classification) back to the spiritual homeland of Africa. The consequence of this is the liberation of the study of races from white supremacy[9] and from European thought.

Monteiro is correct when he notes that “[Du Bois] failed to see early on in his career … that, rather than science, this research program was ideologically driven.[10]” Du Bois had a point to prove to the white supremacists of his era, and he was only too willing to stress that the American Negro had, like all races, something special and unique to contribute to humanity.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” which forms the opening chapter of Souls of Black Folk. The title itself is worthy of comment. The “our” not only personalizes the strivings, but draws together all the people of the Negro race and gives them a collective identity. This is an identity which does not stereotype everybody as the same, but gives them a set of morals and emotions, as well as a collective history, which sets them apart from the other races of the world.

The utopianism of this collectiveness is tainted by Du Bois’s notion of the veil, which shut out the African American from the white world. Du Bois’s own unwillingness to tear down the veil or peak through it emphasises the unity amongst the people of his race he was hopeful of spreading. Nevertheless, his own observation that he “lived above [the veil] in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows[11]” allowed him to pass comment on the white world, for which he had no desire to enter. It was there that:

“He was able to see the symbiotic relationship between white and black in America, and he strove to enlighten his white audience as to the specific psychological and economic tensions and bonds that affected both races.[12]” [Brodwin, p 306]

Whilst he did not want to tear down the veil, Du Bois also stressed that for the good of humanity, the end of black striving would only occur once the African American was a “co-worker in the kingdom of culture.[13]” At first, the two desires might seem incompatible with each other, but in fact they marry up very well. The only true way for African Americans to become effective and meaningful workers in any “kingdom of culture” would be to look deep into their souls and into their history and embrace what has been there from the very start: Africa. This self-observation which Du Bois so strongly advocates for his people was critical throughout his writing career. As Brodwin notes, “this passive transcendence [of the veil] enabled Du Bois to reflect upon his own inner life and that of his race.[14]”

In 1897’s “The Conservation of Races” Du Bois states:

“No Negro who has given earnest thought to the situation of his people in America has failed, at some time in life, to find himself at these cross-roads; has failed to ask himself at some time: What, after all, am I? Am I an American or am I a Negro? Can I be both?[15]”

Within the souls of black men lies Africa. And in Africa lies the great contribution of the Negro race to world civilisation and to world culture. One of the main reasons Africa itself is so special is because it is not Europe. For centuries beforehand, European history was taken as world history. The only role Africa ever seemed to play in “world” history was when it was colonised by the white men of Europe. Du Bois touched upon this in 1920. Of Sir Henry M. Stanley, he wrote: “Down the dark forests of inmost Africa sailed this modern Sir Galahad, in the name of "the noble-minded men of several nations," to introduce commerce and civilization.[16]” Now, however, the Negro was (legally) free in America and in his blood he had a different history to tell the world. But in order for him to enlighten the world, he first had to discover it himself.

The particular question above of exactly what the African American is in the United States grew into Du Bois’s most famous concept, namely double consciousness.

In the early twentieth century, Du Bois constantly used the idea of double consciousness to characterise issues of race. While this use was provocative and unanticipated[17], it was only made possible by a self-understanding of racial identity. In the opening chapter of Souls, Du Bois talks of “two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body,[18]” which create a unique tension in the souls of men of the Negro race.

The first consciousness, of being an American, is the most tangible and the most accessible to African Americans. The second consciousness is less so. The elements which represent the American consciousness of the African American are physical in nature. Africa is represented by the psychical components of the second consciousness, as illustrated in figure 1:

American
Birth
Citizenship
Political ideals
Language
Religion
---------------------------------------------
Being Of The Negro Race
History
Culture
Cultural ideals
African Spirituality
* Figure 1 The Consciences of the African American

The above diagram locates the representative concepts of the second consciousness directly below those of the immediate consciousness. This is not to make the American consciousness of greater importance: the different nature of the two allows both consciousnesses to be active at the same time. Over the years, the element of religion has passed from one consciousness to the other, but today a larger number of African Americans once more practice Christianity than any other religion.

While Du Bois was uncritical of the white religion in “The Conservation of Races” (he merely commented religion to be an ‘Americanism’ of the Negro race), he had developed a strong outspoken opinion of it by 1920. As Zuckerman has commented: “Du Bois's religious identity developed from that of a faithful Christian to a sceptical agnostic.[19]” In “The Souls of White Folk,” Du Bois lambastes “the utter failure of white religion”. What irritates him the most is the impact of Christianity upon Africa: “… the extraordinary self-deception of white religion is epitomized: solemnly the white world sends five million dollars worth of missionary propaganda to Africa each year.[20]” Here, the boundary between the two consciousnesses of the black man in America becomes blurred. The white religion is, in the eyes of Du Bois at least, slipping into Africa where it does not belong and whitening the second consciousness.

The core of what Du Bois wrote in 1897 and 1903 remained true in 1920, when he published “The Souls of White Folk” as the third chapter of Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. He still believed that the Negro race should not crave whiteness, asking rhetorically as he does “what on Earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?[21]”

In many respects, Du Bois develops his ideas to another level, and finds new ways of expressing them. He asserts early on in the essay that he considers whiteness to be ownership of the universe. And with that ownership, comes the manipulation of the universe’s history, so that children are taught that everything great in the world is white. In paragraph six of “The Conservation of Races,” Du Bois states that “the history of the world is the history, not of individuals … but of races.[22]” The underlying theme of “The Souls of White Folk,” then, is the white man’s totalitarianism, and with that comes the extinction from memory of the history of the Negro race. Common history, it may be recalled, was a distinguishing feature of Du Bois’s definition of what a race is, cited at the beginning of this chapter.

The white advance into Africa, Du Bois fears, is damaging to the black identity. The European theory, he suggests is as follows: “It is the duty of white Europe to divide up the darker world and administer it for Europe's good.[23]” This poses great dangers to the African people who now live in the west: European expansion in to Africa envelopes (and to a certain extent extinguishes) what it is, and what it means, to be of African descent.

If this advance continues, fears Du Bois, then so does the spreading of the white ideology, which he outlines all too clearly:

“Everything great, good, efficient, fair, and honourable is "white"; everything mean, bad, blundering, cheating, and dishonourable is "yellow"; a bad taste is "brown"; and the devil is "black".[24]”

The consequences of such a philosophy are obvious. One of the central concerns Du Bois might have would be the killing off of the culture of Africa. Further on in the essay, he talks of a “silent revolution” in modern European culture in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which “Africa was dead, India conquered, Japan isolated, and China prostrate.[25]” Du Bois highlights the domination of the white world and white culture outside of Africa. The history of the world, he said, was the history of races and in recent years past this history was again being made in the very same way.

But the black man in America, Du Bois was aware, faced a unique set of circumstances. Never before in modern history had such a large number of people of one race been forced half way around the world against their will to work as slaves for four hundred years. They could not align their struggle with people of other races. Du Bois was writing in the immediate years following the Emancipation Proclamation, while memories of the Civil War were still vivid in the minds of Americans. He urged unity amongst people ‘of the Negro race’, at a time when they were facing blatant disfranchisement.

African Americans could be unified by the (physical) colour of their skin, but for it to mean something they would have to go through a process of self-observation. Double consciousness is only made possible by an understanding of racial identity through the self. In “The Souls of White Folk” Du Bois states that “a belief in humanity is a belief in coloured men.[26]” To believe in humanity is to believe that persons of Du Bois’s race have something to offer civilisation which cannot be gained from any other race in the world.

Bibliography

Brodwin, Stanley. “The Veil Transcended: Form and Meaning in W.E.B. Du Bois’ ‘The Souls of Black Folk’.” Journal of Black Studies. 2:3. (March 1972): p 303 – 321.

Bruce, Dickinson D. Jr. “W.E.B. Du Bois and the Idea of Double Consciousness.” American Literature. 64:2. (June 1992): p 299 – 309.

Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. 1920.

Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. New York: Dover. [1903] 1994.

Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” 1897.

Monteiro, Anthony. “Being an African in the World: The Du Boisian Epistemology.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568. (March 2000): p 220 – 234.

Zuberi, Tukufu. “Introduction: The Study of African American Problems.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568. (March 2000): p 09 – 12.

Zuckerman, Phil. “The Sociology of Religion of W.E.B. Du Bois.” Sociology of Religion. 63:2. (Summer 2002): p 239 – 253.

Notes

[1] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” 1897. p 32.
[2] Ibid. p 21.
[3] Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America, New Edition. p 416
[4] Ibid., p 58
[5] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” 1897. p 32.
[6] Scientists today are aware that the diversity of man in Africa alone is greater than the diversity of Mankind in the rest of the world put together. For a list of other nineteenth century anthropologists and their respective numering of human races, see Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America, New Edition. p 82
[7] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” 1897. p 33.
[8] Monteiro, Anthony. “Being an African in the World: The Du Boisian Epistemology.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568. (March 2000): p 221.
[9] This is an observation also made by Monteiro, p 221.
[10] Monteiro, Anthony. “Being an African in the World: The Du Boisian Epistemology.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568. (March 2000): p 225.
[11] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 2.
[12] Brodwin, Stanley. “The Veil Transcended: Form and Meaning in W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Souls of Black Folk”.” Journal of Black Studies. 2:3. (March 1972): p 306.
[13] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 3.
[14] Brodwin, Stanley. “The Veil Transcended: Form and Meaning in W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Souls of Black Folk”.” Journal of Black Studies. 2:3. (March 1972): p 307.
[15] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” 1897. p 35.
[16] Du Bois, W.E.B. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. 1920.
[17] Bruce, Dickinson D. Jr. “W.E.B. Du Bois and the Idea of Double Consciousness.” American Literature. 64:2. (June 1992): p 300
[18] Du Bois, W.E.B. Souls of Black Folk. [1903] 1994, p 2
[19] Zuckerman, Phil. “The Sociology of Religion of W.E.B. Du Bois.” Sociology of Religion. 63:2. (Summer 2002): p 241
[20] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Souls of White Folk.” Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. 1920.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” 1897. p 32.
[23] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Souls of White Folk.” Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. 1920.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Souls of White Folk.” Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. 1920.

On First Glance

Don't judge a book by its cover. That's straight forward enough, don't you think? One of my on-going reads at the moment is Theodore W. Allen's lifework "The Invention of the White Race". The book is, broadly speaking, a sharp, critical examination of the birth of racism in the United States. Which came first: slavery or racism? Was racism a harsh consequence of the slave trade, or was the trade itself born out of a belief of racial supremacy?

All interesting stuff.

But look at the cover of volume one. The largest, most eye catching text is 'white race' out of the title. As I've been reading it sat around the staff room table at work, I think it has caught a few eyes. Those two words stand out: 'white race'. A friend caught a glimpse of the book as I packed it into my bag tonight. He chuckled, and said he thought it was a white supremacist book. "It's quite the opposite, actually," I replied.

With one glance of a lazy eye, a book which promotes anti-racism through the relinquishing of whiteness and the white privilege that comes with it is so easily confused with the nonsense of of a David Duke. No body at work has yet asked me about what I am reading. I am not sure I could explain it to them if they asked. "Well are you familiar with the William and Mary Quarterly?"...

The natural assumption that because a book deals directly with the white race it must be one of a supremacist ideology or, at best, one with mild racism in it is a troubling one. I consider these two volumes to be quite revolutionary because they deal with whiteness from an anti-racist perspective.

Notes from Roediger, David. "Towards The Abolition of Whiteness." Introduction

Below are my personal notes from the introduction of David Roediger's Towards The Abolition of Whiteness. They are written from an impartial perspective. Click on an image to enlarge it.

So The Time Has Come

The BBC reports this week that, from the beginning of the 2008 / 09 academic year, Britain's involvement in the slave trade is to be studied by all secondary pupils in England.

When I began university, I studied a core module in the first year called "Black Atlantic: Slavery and it's Legacies". The title, you may notice, is related to a book by Paul Gilroy, but that's not the point. I came out of the first lecture scared. I was not scared by the horrors of slavery (I guess the MTV generation has become passive to images and tales of gore and suffering), but what troubled me personally was that I had gone through my entire childhood without realising that Britain -- the country of which I had always considered myself but a loyal servant -- committed one of the most terrible crimes of modern civilisation. I knew of the Holocaust, which accounted for the deaths of millions of people because of their religion, but I knew not of fates worse than death bore out by African people over timescales of centuries instead of decades. I felt ignorant and out of touch with a passage of history so gruesome and wrong that I simply began to crave knowledge and understanding on a phenomenal and bewildering scale.

What hurt the most was the sudden realisation that slavery and the slave trade mattered. They mattered as early as the sixteenth century, and they still matter here in the twenty-first.

I studied my degree at the University of Liverpool John Moores: the streets I walked down to get to class were, and still are, named after the slave traders. Under the picture on the BBC web site, the caption reads: "pupils will be urged to look at the long term impacts of slavery". While this simply has to be the case if the learning is to be worthwhile, it is worth remembering that the legacies of slavery are not purely aesthetic in terms of the microcosm of Liverpool. As often as raindrops fall upon Liverpool the city tries to cleanse itself, yet it longs for a cleanliness which seems to forever be out of reach, as the raindrops come laced with the blood of the slaves. The same is true of Bristol. The same is true of London.

The only time I ever came close to touching upon the slave trade was in the sixth form at school, when I was studying A-level government & politics. We learnt of about thirty Supreme Court cases in a single one hour lesson. Dred Scott vs Sandford, 1857 passed by in a single sentence: "no slave could be a citizen of the United States" said the teacher. "Next one, Plessy vs Ferguson, 1897," he continued, "the legalisation of segregation in America. This was overturned in the 50's with the case Brown vs Board of Education." In about thirty seconds we covered the spine of African-American history with regard to the U.S. Supreme Court. I can't recall them being mentioned again in class, but I still remember thinking at the time: "slaves? Segregation? There's no connection there." Thankfully I did my reading and I did my research. Twelve months later, in my first year at university.

Until now, the neglect of the slave trade and slavery from the curriculum sticks out like a sore thumb. To not teach the slave trade and slavery and the legacies of both is to effectively deny that they happened.

There's currently a 'comment' up on the BBC web site simply saying the teaching of slavery should not be compulsory, made by Vic, UK. Hmmm. Should pupils learn the concept of equality? Are people of African descent equal to people of European descent? Should pupils learn that everyone should be judged by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin? (I am assuming the answer is an unwavering 'yes', there). By making slavery compulsory it makes the civil rights movement easier to contextualise -- I find it hard to believe I read King's speech and discussed it in class without taking slavery and the slave trade into account whatsoever. The philosophy of Malcolm X is so misunderstood in high school history that schools won't touch it with a barge pole. On face value it's an angry black man shouting "the white man is the devil!" He shouts the white man is the devil because the white man enslaved the black man for three hundred years, and even though Lincoln "freed" the slaves in 1865, African-Americans were still not free when he (Malcolm X) was assassinated and were still second-class citizens then, 100 years after "freedom". Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

The election of Barack Obama to the White House will not put an end to racial prejudice, in the same way that racial prejudice did not begin with the slave trade. But the picture is a complex one: racial prejudice, the political career of Barack Obama, and the slave trade are all carefully interwoven. You can't learn about two of them without the third one. In between these three, of course, there are many more important factors which also cannot be ignored...

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

Winning In The Ghetto: Explaining Harlem Through The Life And Times Of Malcolm X

The complexities and paradoxes of Harlem can be partially understood through the kaleidoscope of the life and work of (Mr.) Malcolm X, with close reference to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Claude Brown’s Manchild In The Promised Land. It is my intention to demonstrate this by dividing the characteristics of Harlem into explaining four fundamental concepts: Harlem as a place with a pre-determined destiny due to geographical elements; Harlem as a space for change under the umbrella of democracy in the United States, being itself a microcosm of a black metropolis for the world’s black people; Harlem as a space where forces of good and evil co-exist and collide in a ghettoised prism, resulting in the notion of ‘good’ being heavily distorted; and finally Harlem as the white man’s ‘sleaze pit’ where white persons go to indulge in illicit customs. In the following essay it is my intention to illustrate how Harlem, when considered in these guises, and contextualised historically from 1940 through the 1960’s, changed Malcolm X from a naïve Michigan boy to a hustling, street-talking Harlemite, and then to a leader for the black community. Throughout, I will draw upon specific details given in the above texts.

GEOGRAPHICS

To begin, it is important to understand the significance of the geography of Harlem. In broad terms, this means placing the neighbourhood in relation to the rest of Manhattan. Harlem is located directly north of Central Park, with 110^th street being the southern ‘dividing line’. Malcolm X noted in his autobiography that “when we left Central Park at the upper end, at 110^th street, the people’s complexion began to change[1].” Indeed, 110^th street was, during Malcolm X’s lifetime at least, a definitive barrier between classes and races. It is less so today, but it remains a significant point of reference on the majority of Manhattan maps. It should not surprise us in the least that Malcolm felt a change in the air when he crossed 110^th street. We may be surprised, however, to read that around 110^th Street was “the worst of the ghetto, the poorest people[2].” Even within the Harlem ghetto, a hierarchy remained.

While Harlem is basically a single borough, its streets are what New York’s African-Americans call (or are supposed to accept as) home. At the age of thirteen, James Baldwin learnt this from a police officer in the centre of the intersection: “the cop in the middle of the street muttered ‘why don’t you niggers stay uptown where you belong?’[3]” it is significant that Harlem is quite central on Manhattan; to the East and West of Central Park to the South, Harlem is bordered by predominantly white neighbourhoods, and Washington Heights is to the North of the black community. Excepting Central Park, Harlem is completely surrounded by white boroughs, full of people with different coloured skin and people of a supposed different class. The captivity of the black man in the United States is certainly evidenced by these geographic idiosyncrasies, which all add to the experience of living in Harlem, and must be taken into account as having a positive effect in reinforcing the Nation of Islam ideology. Even Baldwin concedes that “it is ‘only the so called American-Negro’ who remains trapped, disinherited, and despised, in a nation that has kept him in bondage for over four hundred years. . .[4]” Indeed, the location of Harlem could be one of the principle reasons for Claude Brown referring to Harlem as being “exploited and neglected[5].”

The grid system played an important part in the development of Malcolm X. The logistics of such a system results in the creation of a series of generic corners. At busy intersections, the corners become a focal point. Baldwin notes how he: “sometimes found myself in Harlem on Saturday nights, and I stood in the crowds at 125^th Street and Seventh Avenue, and listened to the Muslim speakers[6].” The Nation of Islam speakers were not the only ones who preached on soapboxes and step-ladders at the bustling intersections to anyone who would listen. Malcolm X realised this:

. . . the big trouble, obviously, was that we were only one among the many voices of black discontent on every busy Harlem corner. The different Nationalist groups, the ‘Buy Black!’ forces, and others like that; dozens of their step-ladder orators were trying to increase their followings[7].”

We can see from this that the grid system in place across Manhattan Island allows speakers to address a large number of people at once. Citizens can congregate and listen, and the orators also have the chance of catching the ear of passers-by as well. The manipulation of geography within the urban spectrum helped Malcolm X when he was the hustler selling cannabis to the drug addicts. When he had come out of prison, he used the same locations to sell his story of the white man being the devil to the dishomed African-Americans who now occupied the ghettos of America’s metropolises.

A SPACE FOR CHANGE

It is possible to understand Harlem as an urban space for change under the umbrella of democracy, on account of it being a focal point for black people across the world. This is evidenced in the writing of Claude Brown, who not only insists that “to me, New York was Harlem[8],” but also says he “used to tell everybody jokingly - but I half believed it - that Harlem was the capital of the world[9].” Not only does this explain Malcolm X’s desire to go and experience Harlem, but it underlines the importance of the borough to African-American culture. Harlem gave African-Americans a sense of identity; this is reinforced by Brown’s notion that Harlem was still his “point of relating to life and events and putting them together[10].”

Considering this, we can apply a similar theory to the hustling of Malcolm X. He managed to sell marijuana all up and down the East coast of the United States, through the manipulation of a railroad identification card. When he ran out of supplies, he would return to New York (Harlem), load up and then hit the road again[11]. Harlem became his base for his operation. It was his personal starting point for what he expected to be his life’s work. In a more general sense, this a reflection on the African-American relationship to the borough.

The notion of Harlem being the black man’s America is one which does not sit comfortably with the young James Baldwin. Throughout the opening part of The Fire Next Time, he feels sickened by the gangster lifestyle which was evident on a day-to-day basis on the Harlem streets. This is important because it is the opposite view taken by Malcolm X and Claude Brown who, for a short time at least, enjoy the characteristics of Harlem living in the age of sin:

“I was icily determined - more determined, really, than I then knew - never to make my piece with the ghetto but to die and go to hell before . . . I would ‘accept’ my place in this Republic[12].”

His anger at the misdemeanours of life on the Harlem streets is later adopted by both Brown and, to a greater extent, Malcolm X, yet his initial unwillingness to live out the gangster lifestyle even for a short time indicates that, for all it’s lacking of moral standards, Harlem can a place to empower the individual. In the case of Baldwin, it drove him into the church[13] and made him a better person for it. Baldwin freely admits he was scared to be living in such close proximity to so many evils, but this made him starkly aware of what was right. Malcolm X (and to a lesser extent Claude Brown) gain this awareness only after having been sucked into Harlem’s seedy underworld (though a great many things happened in broad daylight) and gained first hand experience of life without morals.

Any urban space has the ability to change any man in any number of ways. The specific characteristics of Harlem life clearly result in everyone being someone, and Baldwin seems quite resigned to the fact that change happens in Harlem, and change happens fast. In his words, “one doesn’t, in Harlem, long remain standing on any auction block[14]” before the nuances of life in the borough change your outlook on life and your personality. They changed Baldwin for the better, as they did Brown and Malcolm too, but only after years of experience of the nuances.

GOOD VERSUS EVIL

Certain characteristics of the Manhattan neighbourhood point to it being a space where forces of good and evil co-exist and collide in a ghettoized prism, and where the notion of good is distorted. Running the numbers, for example, is represented by Malcolm (and others) as being an accepted part of Harlem life: all citizens recognise it as being a relief from the stresses of living in the ghetto and most African-Americans dreamt of hitting the big combination one day[15]. The police, for what they were worth, turned a blind eye to the numbers runners[16] and allowed the practice to flourish. This all went on regardless of the fact gambling was deemed wrong by New York law, hence it being illegality[17].

This distortion as far as the characteristics of acceptability are concerned is paralleled by a greater sense of what is unacceptable. Claude Brown, for instance, remarks how stealing from the poor is utterly wrong when a numbers banker failed to pay out after a win[18].

What is good and what is wrong is very different within the Harlem ghetto. Streetcorner philosophers[19] appear on the corner of many busy intersections appealing to Harlemites to listen to them and believe in what they are saying. Baldwin takes a distanced approach to such street politics:

“I have long had a very definite tendency to tune out the moment I come anywhere near either a pulpit or a soapbox. What … men were saying about white people I had often heard before[20].”

What Baldwin is referring to as “often heard before” is the berating of the white man. The portrayal of the white man as the devil would not have been anything new to any Harlemite. Malcolm X would soon be one of the people maximising the cosmopolitan way of life in Harlem in such a way in an attempt to try and get his political message across, but the acceptability of that political message outside of the 110^th Street to 155^th Street microclimate is unquestionably going to endure a harsh reception.

To reduce it to a lower common denominator, black is portrayed as good, while white is portrayed as evil. Baldwin notes how, to the supporters of the Nation of Islam at least, “Allah, out of power, and on the dark side of heaven, had become – for all practical purposes, anyway – black[21].” For Brown, being as far away from light skinned, the more accepted you were into the Harlem community, as if having a darker shade of skin made you a better person than a lighter skinned counterpart[22]. Such assumptions and such warped values were acceptable and sustained in the Harlem which moulded Malcolm X, though they would most likely not be actively endorsed by people of authority and power.

SLEAZE PIT

The evils of Harlem made the area between 110^th Street and Washington Heights into one big market. The market catered for the white man, and it is possible to understand Harlem as the white man’s ‘sleaze pit’, selling all the evils one can handle.

The young Malcolm X did not take long to notice that white people were not a novelty in Harlem; as he put it, “blacktown crawled with white people[23].” As he grew to know Harlem a little better, he slowly realised they came for the atmosphere: Harlem was a special place for them, too. Though Malcolm came close to white people early on during his time in Harlem (the NYPD recommended Small’s (where he worked) to white people looking for a ‘safe’ place up in Harlem[24]), he would later come to know ‘sinful’ as being all too good a synonym for ‘white’.

The riot of 1943 had a detrimental impact upon Harlem being a fun place for white people from downtown. After 1943, few whites went North of Central Park after dark, preferring to get their kicks in other areas of Manhattan. The only white people who continued to go there after dark were in pursuit of illegalities.

With substantial amounts of money involved, Malcolm X played a part in helping rich white men (and thus usually powerful and important white men) live out their bizarre sexual fantasies. The women who ran the operation now needed ‘steerers’ to get her white clients into, and out of, Harlem without them being seen; this is where Malcolm came in. His first hand experience of this business resulting in him declaring “Harlem was their sin-den, their fleshpot[25].”

Interestingly, he notes that, in this black-white nether world, no one ever judged the white men[26]. Later, however, Malcolm X would realise the errors he had made in his life, and as he became detached form the Harlem hustling scene, it is likely he would develop a very low opinion of the political leaders and the leaders of society whom he dealt with. To deny these experiences of white New Yorkers had a detrimental affect on Malcolm X is foolishness; he was often invited in by the white men to watch the whippings they craved from the African-American women[27]. These experiences must partly explain his deepest feelings towards white people when he first left prison a Muslim. As James Baldwin noted: “the Negro’s experience of the white world cannot possibly create in him any respect for the standards by which the white world claims to live[28].”

The transparency of these exchanges is debatable. The chances are that tails of these services being provided by African-American women for (often ageing) white men slipped out into common knowledge somewhere down the line, whether it be by word of mouth or a passer-by seeing something odd. If we take this into consideration, and combine it with some hard facts, we get a detailed picture of the black-white relationship in Harlem during the given time frame:

Ø Authorities invested next to nothing in Harlem[29];

Ø Mayor LaGuardia closed the Savoy[30];

Ø Rents in Harlem were higher than most of the rest of Manhattan[31];

Ø White merchants in Harlem refused to hire black people[32];

Ø A white policemen shot a black soldier at the Braddock[33].

The latter two were the cause of the 1935 and 1943 riots respectively. If we take all these into consideration, we get a greater understanding of why Baldwin asserted that “one did not need to prove to a Harlem audience that all white men were devils[34].” In the work of Malcolm X with the Nation of Islam, we see this inherent belief, personified by incidents in the borough of Harlem, run explicitly through his work.

To conclude, by reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X in close relation to The Fire Next Time and Manchild of the Promised Land under the four guises outlined previous, we get a good sense of the urban landscape and the social make-up of the Harlem which transformed Malcolm X, first into a criminal, and then permitted him to be a devoted believer in the dangerous notion of the Nation of Islam: the white man is the devil. It is important to understand both aspects of Malcolm X’s life to get a grasp of the paradoxes which were present in Harlem from (roughly) 1940 through the 1960’s and which can, and do, exist in any urban space.

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[1] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 157

[2] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 191

[3] The Fire Next Time, page 26

[4] The Fire Next Time, page 65

[5] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 179

[6] The Fire Next Time, page 46

[7] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 317-8

[8] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 53

[9] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 119

[10] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 198

[11] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 192

[12] The Fire Next Time, page 29

[13] The Fire Next Time, page 32

[14] The Fire Next Time, page 32

[15] Autobiography of Malcolm X; page 171

[16] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 51

[17] Section 5-401 of the New York Constitution, as cited by http://www.gambling-law-us.com/State-Laws/New-York/

[18] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 209

[19] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 61

[20] The Fire Next Time, page 46-7

[21] The Fire Next Time, page 46

[22] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 63

[23] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 169

[24] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 178

[25] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 209

[26] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 209

[27] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 209

[28] The Fire Next Time, page 28

[29] Manchild in the Promised Land, page 190

[30] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 202

[31] The New York Times, December 13, 1937, page 02; “Negro Rents Held Artificially High; Post, at Hearing, Says That Harlem Tenants Are ‘Gouged’ Since They Cannot Move” http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10C14FB3B5A157A93C7A81789D95F438385F9

[32] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 202

[33] Autobiography of Malcolm X, page 203

[34] The Fire Next Time, page 48