Rate this quote: Day 1 (John Henrik Clarke)

[Asicz]

I think the blacks who had liberal Arts education and political science education would have helped the farming and mechanical trades to thrive.

 

[Asicz]

I think to understand black American's problems in the USA, you have to compare what other ethnic groups got that we didn't get, including Latino and black immigrants groups.

Look at their circumstances. White supremacy has a different mechanization depending on geography and time period.

 

[BlackDiBiase]

when the man is painting the lion he is chasing it, when the lion paints the man ...

who catches the biggest fish, gets to do the biggest talking.

and he said to me "do your best work".

RIP.

 

[Asicz]

Black men and Skilled trades around 1942 because of the war

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America

 

[EndDomination]

I disagree with the general point, wedding the working class and professional class has generally been difficult in all communities--not just the black community--and so he overstates its potential. And the quote also underestates systemic barriers to progress, that leads to him having misguided expectations in regards to Black institutions.

At the time - it may have held some stronger regard.

I think wedding the two in the 1910s-1960s would have been feasible since most African-American communities were an incredibly mixed grouping due to legal and economic segregation. Even for many white communities, the mixed communities were an incredible reality. Perhaps many of the barriers would have eroded - especially if inter-community education was made a reality regardless of occupation if that makes sense.

 

[thekingsmen]

I disagree with the quote only bc W.E.B. thinking in that era created the class divide of blacks that ultimately is seen today in the destruction of the community. Dubois was thinking for his own neck and those chosen by the White elites.

 

[Vandelay]

Genius idea for a thread. I gave it a 10. Probably a little biased because this is the first ranking. There's some hyperbole here, but I think he's right. Tradesmen are needed now more than ever. Not sure why Dubois and Washington's solutions couldn't have worked in tandem.

 

[old pig]

I saw Henri Carke speak in real life in DC I wanna say Howard when I was a kid

ya pops often took me to hear lectures from him and van sertima growing up...I was a young teen then

 

[invalid]

Sorry, I don't get alerts when I get tagged half of the time so I missed this.

Five star thread and I hope you keep this series up.

Ok.

On one hand, I am not in disagreement with the quote at all. But I do take take issue with Dr. Clarke not properly citing from whence this idea came; this idea of a communal marriage between the intellectual and technical factions of our community.

Because its not an original idea.

You wanna know where it came from? It came from DUBOIS. Where you might ask? In the Souls of Black Folks. In which section? The section of his elegy to the Talented Tenth.

The fact that people seem to miss this makes me believe that they didn't actually read the book or comprehend what he was saying about the Talented Tenth. What I will do is post the excerpt and highlight the areas where he communicates this idea. Since this is a serious thread, I'm assuming everyone in here will not have a problem reading. It is Dubois after all, so it's lengthy, but you need to read it in it's entirety to have proper context.

I'll put it in a separate post.

 

[invalid]

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. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life…

If this be true—and who can deny it—three tasks lay before me; first to show from the past that the Talented Tenth as they have risen among American Negroes have been worthy of leadership; secondly, to show how these men may be educated and developed; and thirdly, to show their relation to the Negro problem…

From the very first it has, been the educated and intelligent of the Negro people that have led and elevated the mass, and the sole obstacles that nullified and retarded their efforts were slavery and race prejudice; …

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 to-day 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; “These 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. But not even this was able to crush all manhood and chastity and aspiration from black folk. A saving remnant continually survives and persists, continually aspires, continually shows itself in thrift and ability and character. Exceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest promise; it shows the capability of Negro blood, the promise of black men … .

Is it fair, is it decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration, to nullify such leadership and seek to crush these people back into the mass out of which by toil and travail, they and their fathers have raised themselves? Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever 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; …

These figures illustrate vividly the function of the college-bred Negro. He is, as he ought to be, the group leader, the man who sets the ideals of the community where he lives, directs its thoughts and heads its social movements. It need hardly be argued that the Negro people need social leadership more than most groups; that they have no traditions to fall back upon, no long established customs, no strong family ties, no well defined social classes. All these things must be slowly and painfully evolved. The preacher was, even before the war, the group leader of the Negroes, and the church their greatest social institution. Naturally this preacher was ignorant and often immoral, and the problem of replacing the older type by better educated men has been a difficult one. Both by direct work and by direct influence on other preachers, and on congregations, the college-bred preacher has an opportunity for reformatory work and moral inspiration, the value of which cannot be overestimated.

It has, however, been in the furnishing of teachers that the Negro college has found its peculiar function. Few persons realize how vast a work, how mighty a revolution has been thus accomplished. To furnish five millions and more of ignorant people with teachers of their own race and blood, in one generation, was not only a very difficult undertaking, but a very important one, in that it placed before the eyes of almost every Negro child an attainable ideal. It brought the masses of the blacks in contact with modern civilization, made black men the leaders of their communities and trainers of the new generation. In this work college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and then teachers of teachers. And here it is that the broad culture of college work has been of peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its wider meaning, has been the point of the Negro’s deepest ignorance, and the sending out of teachers whose training has not been simply for bread winning, but also for human culture, has been of inestimable value in the training of these men…

The main question, so far as the Southern Negro is concerned, is: What under the present circumstance, must a system of education do in order to raise the Negro as quickly as possible in the scale of civilization? The answer to this question seems to me clear: It must strengthen the Negro’s character, increase his knowledge and teach him to earn a living. Now it goes without saying, that it is hard to do all these things simultaneously or suddenly, and that at the same time it will not do to give all the attention to one and neglect the others; we could give black boys trades, but that alone will not civilize a race of ex-slaves; we might simply increase their knowledge of the world, but this would not necessarily make them wish to use this knowledge honestly; we might seek to strengthen character and purpose, but to what end if this people have nothing to eat or to wear? … . If then we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims—the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under the present circumstances. These objects are accomplished in part by the opening of the common schools on the one, and of the industrial schools on the other. But only in part, for there must also be trained those who are to teach these schools—men and women of knowledge and culture and technical skill who understand modern civilization, and have the training and aptitude to impart it to the children under them. There must be teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to attempt to establish any sort of a system of common and industrial school training, without first (and I say first advisedly) without first providing for the higher training of the very best teachers, is simply throwing your money to the winds … Nothing, in these latter days, has so dampened the faith of thinking Negroes in recent educational movements, as the fact that such movements have been accompanied by ridicule and denouncement and decrying of those very institutions of higher training which made the Negro public school possible, and make Negro industrial schools thinkable …

I would not deny, or for a moment seem to deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the Negro to work, and to work steadily and skillfully; or seem to depreciate in the slightest degree the important part industrial schools must play in the accomplishment of these ends, but I do say, and insist upon it, that it is industrialism drunk, with its vision of success, to imagine that its own work can be accomplished without providing for the training of broadly cultured men and women to teach its own teachers, and to teach the teachers of the public schools.

But I have already said that human education is not simply a matter of schools; it is much more a matter of family and group life—the training of one’s home, of one’s daily companions, of one’s social class. Now the black boy of the South moves in a black world—a world with its own leaders, its own thoughts, its own ideals. In this world he gets by far the larger part of his life training, and through the eyes of this dark world he peers into the veiled world beyond. Who guides and determines the education which he receives in his world? His teachers here are the group-leaders of the Negro people—the physicians and clergymen, the trained fathers and mothers, the influential and forceful men about him of all kinds; here it is, if at all, that all culture of the surrounding world trickles through and is handed on by the graduates of the higher schools. Can such culture training of group leaders be neglected? Can we afford to ignore it? … You have no choice; either you must help furnish this race from within its own ranks with thoughtful men of trained leadership, or you must suffer the evil consequences of a headless misguided rabble.

I am an earnest advocate of manual training and trade teaching for black boys, and for white boys, too. I believe that next to the founding of Negro colleges the most valuable addition to Negro education since the war, has been industrial training for black boys. Nevertheless, I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men; there are two means of making the carpenter a man, each equally important: the first is to give the group and community in which he works, liberally trained teachers and leaders to teach him and his family what life means; the second is to give him sufficient intelligence and technical skill to make him an efficient workman; the first object demands the Negro college and college-bred men—not a quantity of such colleges, but a few of excellent quality; not too many college-bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to inspire the masses, to raise the Talented Tenth to leadership; the second object demands a good system of common schools, well-taught, conventionally located and properly equipped …

Further than this, after being provided with group leaders of civilization, and a foundation of intelligence in the public schools, the carpenter, in order to be a man, needs technical skill. This calls for trade schools…

Even at this point, however, the difficulties were not surmounted. In the first place modern industry has taken great strides since the war, and the teaching of trades is no longer a simple matter. Machinery and long processes of work have greatly changed the work of the carpenter, the ironworker and the shoemaker. A really efficient workman must be to-day an intelligent man who has had good technical training in addition to thorough common school, and perhaps even higher training…

Thus, again, in the manning of trade schools and manual training schools we are thrown back upon the higher training as its source and chief support. There was a time when any aged and worn-out carpenter could teach in a trade school. But not so to-day. 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 the 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 read Virgil and Homer in the same class room with me; he has as college chaplain, a classical graduate of Atlanta University; 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 grammars 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. And yet one of the effects of Mr. Washington’s propaganda has been to throw doubt upon the expediency of such training for Negroes, as these persons have had.

Men of America, the problem is plain before you. Here is a race transplanted through the criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work—it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.

 

[invalid]

Dubois delivered the death blow to Washington in the 2nd to last paragraph.

Tuskegee is the case study of the "marriage" that Dubois and Clarke speaks about. Which is why Dubois is perplexed at Washington attaching little importance to classical/liberal arts education for those who seek it out.

Tuskegee would not be what it is today if it wasn't for Washington attracting the classically educated sons and daughter of the talented tenth to come teach and be administrators of the school.

Tuskegee framed it's technical education in a structure put in place by those with classical education- and this is the clearest example behind the idea of the talented tenth, which is anchoring our "exceptions" in classical training and making them teachers - so they can go on and be teachers of teachers.

Dubois explains that the point of education is manhood which is attained through intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it. And it is from here that we can teach self-sufficiency through trade.

That was Tuskegee.

People tend to miss this point, but the whole section about Dubois' talented tenth was Dubois putting a mirror up to Tuskegee Institute.

@Get These Nets
@IllmaticDelta

What do you guys think?

 

[get these nets]

Dubois delivered the death blow to Washington in the 2nd to last paragraph.

Tuskegee is the case study of the "marriage" that Dubois and Clarke speaks about. Which is why Dubois is perplexed at Washington attaching little importance to classical education for those who seek it out.

Tuskegee would not be what it is today if it wasn't for Washington attracting the classically educated sons and daughter of the talented tenth to come teach and be administrators of the school.

Tuskegee framed it's technical education in a structure put in place by those with classical education- and this is the clearest example behind the idea of the talented tenth, which is anchoring our "exceptions" in classical training and making them teachers - so they can go on and be teachers of teachers.

Dubois explains that the point of education is manhood which is attained through intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it. And it is from here that we can teach self-sufficiency through trade.

That was Tuskegee.

People tend to miss this point, but the whole section about Dubois' talented tenth was Dubois putting a mirror up to Tuskegee Institute.

@Get These Nets

What do you guys think?

You pulled Washington's card about this topic in the Powerful Black Families thread. Rereading Dubois' passage here.............it reads like Ether. He literally says Queens dudes 'Boule' people"run you, ask Russell Simmons your wife"

I'm not sure that any of them were wrong, though . Like I said before, I think that Washington's personal experiences made him more in tune with what the social and economic realities were for the masses of Black people. The classically trained Blacks were an "asset" to the training/education of the masses. A means to an end, if you will. But the true power would come from commerce and industry from the masses.

Dubois' experiences and background shaped his views. What year was the SOBF published?I beleive it was before the Great Migration. All references to the Great Migration point to the vast majority of Black people living in the (jim crow) South before it began. The realities for them were different for the members of the Tal. 10th. Their (Tal. 10) departure from the South occured ahead of the Great Migration or formed the very first wave.

 

[invalid]

You pulled Washington's card about this topic in the Powerful Black Families thread. Rereading Dubois' passage here.............it reads like Ether. He literally says Queens dudes 'Boule' people"run you, ask Russell Simmons your wife"

Good eye.

I'm not sure that any of them were wrong, though .

Yeah, I agree. I think both schools of thoughts have their merits.

Just wanted to clarify that Dubois wasn't just saying that liberal education, at the expense of all others, is the way forward for the black masses, which is what many mistakenly believe.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Dubois delivered the death blow to Washington in the 2nd to last paragraph.

Tuskegee is the case study of the "marriage" that Dubois and Clarke speaks about. Which is why Dubois is perplexed at Washington attaching little importance to classical/liberal arts education for those who seek it out.

Tuskegee would not be what it is today if it wasn't for Washington attracting the classically educated sons and daughter of the talented tenth to come teach and be administrators of the school.

Tuskegee framed it's technical education in a structure put in place by those with classical education- and this is the clearest example behind the idea of the talented tenth, which is anchoring our "exceptions" in classical training and making them teachers - so they can go on and be teachers of teachers.

Dubois explains that the point of education is manhood which is attained through intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it. And it is from here that we can teach self-sufficiency through trade.

That was Tuskegee.

People tend to miss this point, but the whole section about Dubois' talented tenth was Dubois putting a mirror up to Tuskegee Institute.

@Get These Nets
@IllmaticDelta

What do you guys think?

Yeah, they were both right with Dubois being a bit more right lol. As you pointed out with the observation Dubois made on Tuskegee, IT WAS a perfect marriage of educated leaders (talented tenth types) and the students (common types from the masses) being taught agriculture/trades by those same types.

 

[EndDomination]

Bomani Jones from ESPN was saying that Du Bois said( I paraphrase )the white people think ever since slavery "the Negro is to do, he must not think"

Basically going against Booker T Washington emphasis on black people doing farm work and mechanics instead of Liberal Arts education

This seemed to be a closer calculation to the intent of the Northern industrialists who gave money to Tuskegee.

I think the blacks who had liberal Arts education and political science education would have helped the farming and mechanical trades to thrive.

They would have developed a culture and a body beyond just exploited, but well-educated labor.

I disagree with the quote only bc W.E.B. thinking in that era created the class divide of blacks that ultimately is seen today in the destruction of the community. Dubois was thinking for his own neck and those chosen by the White elites.

The era is not what created the class divide - and Washington was the creation of the White elites far more than DuBois was.
The class divide existed in the 1700d and 1800s and was only exacerbated by the post-Reconstruction terrorism of Whites.

Sorry, I don't get alerts when I get tagged half of the time so I missed this.

Five star thread and I hope you keep this series up.

Ok.

On one hand, I am not in disagreement with the quote at all. But I do take take issue with Dr. Clarke not properly citing from whence this idea came; this idea of a communal marriage between the intellectual and technical factions of our community.

Because its not an original idea.

You wanna know where it came from? It came from DUBOIS. Where you might ask? In the Souls of Black Folks. In which section? The section of his elegy to the Talented Tenth.

The fact that people seem to miss this makes me believe that they didn't actually read the book or comprehend what he was saying about the Talented Tenth. What I will do is post the excerpt and highlight the areas where he communicates this idea. Since this is a serious thread, I'm assuming everyone in here will not have a problem reading. It is Dubois after all, so it's lengthy, but you need to read it in it's entirety to have proper context.

I'll put it in a separate post.

I was going to say the same thing - he also makes a second reflection closer to the end of his life about it.

You pulled Washington's card about this topic in the Powerful Black Families thread. Rereading Dubois' passage here.............it reads like Ether. He literally says Queens dudes 'Boule' people"run you, ask Russell Simmons your wife"

I'm not sure that any of them were wrong, though . Like I said before, I think that Washington's personal experiences made him more in tune with what the social and economic realities were for the masses of Black people. The classically trained Blacks were an "asset" to the training/education of the masses. A means to an end, if you will. But the true power would come from commerce and industry from the masses.

Dubois' experiences and background shaped his views. What year was the SOBF published?I beleive it was before the Great Migration. All references to the Great Migration point to the vast majority of Black people living in the (jim crow) South before it began. The realities for them were different for the members of the Tal. 10th. Their (Tal. 10) departure from the South occured ahead of the Great Migration or formed the very first wave.

This is also true - though the Talented Tenth was not regional - those educated at Morehouse and Spelman (later Harvard and Yale) - Fisk and Southern, as well as The Tuskegee Institute - were all apart of the intellectual and moneyed Black elite, it existed in all cities with Black people in the US. The goal was to rear that 10th so they could develop into the vanguard for the Negro community.