I still have not decided which leader was correct, Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. Du Bois. Washington, educator, reformer and the most influential Negro of his time (1856-1915) preached a philosophy of accommodation, self-help and racial solidarity. He suggested that blacks should accept racial discrimination for the moment and focus on lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps. Simply put, Washington believed that if the black man worked hard enough gained material prosperity and was patient enough white America would eventually fully accept him into all strata of society.

W.E.B. Du Bois, a black intellectual, scholar and political thinker (1868-1963) believed Washington's philosophy would serve only to perpetuate white oppression. Du Bois supported political action and a civil rights agenda. Du Bois was one of the founding members of the NAACP. Most importantly Du Bois believed that social change could be accomplished by developing the small group of college-educated blacks he called "the Talented Tenth."

This is some of what Du Bois had to say about the "Talented Tenth":
(excerpted from The Negro Problem)(1903)

The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first 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…And so we come to the present---a day of cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide-voiced wrong and faint hearted compromise; of double-faced dallying with Truth and Right. Who are today guiding the work of the Negro people?The "exceptions"of course. And yet so sure as this Talented Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of the Average cry out in alarm: "They are exceptions, look here at death, disease and crime-these are the happy rule." Of course they are the rule, because a silly nation made them the rule: Because for three long centuries this people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave, raped Black women who dared to be virtuous, crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be ambitious, and encouraged and made to flourish servility and lewdness and apathy…

Was there ever a nation on God's fair earth civilized from the bottom up? Never, it is, was, and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground. This is the history of human progress; and the two historical mistakes which have hindered progress were the thinking first that no more could ever rise and save the few already risen; or second, that it would better the unrisen pull the risen down.

All men cannot go to college but some must; every isolated group or nation must have its yeast, must have for the talented few centers of training where men are not so mystified and befuddled by the hard and necessary toil of earning a living, as to have no aims higher than their bellies, and no God greater than Gold.

Du bois envisioned that the "Talented Tenth would return to the black community with the skills and/or education they acquired and use those tools and talents to build a bridge between the "haves and have-nots within the black community. To a great extent this has not happened. The "Talented Tenth" used their tools and talents to benefit themselves. As soon as they were financially able they fled the black community, abandoned the public schools, and said to hell with their less fortunate sisters and brothers. They are consumed with fulfilling their own materialistic desires rather than providing a service to their fellow man.

I think Dr. Ridgely A. Mu'min sums it up best in her poem "The Talented Tenth":
Where, oh where did the "Talented Tenth " go? They got lost somewhere in the masta's snow. Some of the talent was lost up their nose, The other was lost on designer clothes, But one thing is plain to see, It all left the community. Thirty-five to sixty-five, The lost generation, We sent them off to college to get an education, But all they found there was basic training at the grooming stations for the masta's plantation. They even took their cap and gowns to the other side of town, Leaving their communities and businesses and institutions behind, Running after that acceptance they would never find. They were not accepted on the white side, And too ashamed to come back on the black side. Where, oh where did the "Talented Tenth" go? They got lost somewhere in the masta's snow.

Greg Griffin is a freelance writer. You can read his previous articles by logging on to his webpage at www.greggriffin.com