Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 34. Accommodating Leadership - 4. The “Glass Plate”
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
726 An American Dilemma
therefore, means something in the North. Their opposition might occa-
sionally turn an election against a candidate. The actual and the still
greater potential significance of the Negroes’ sharing in the political power
in the North has been discussed in Chapters 22 and 23. Negroes are, how-
ever, only a tiny minority everywhere in the North. Even if the difference
from the South is enormous, Negroes are, most of the time and in most
respects, dependent on white leaders who do not feel dependent on Negro
opinion.
This is, generally speaking, still more true in other power spheres than
in politics proper 5
for example, in philanthropy, in educational institutions,
in professional associations. Poverty and cultural backwardness generally
prevent Negroes from having practically any primary power over the
selection of white leaders in these fields. An exception is the labor move-
ment. In so far as unions are kept open to Negroes, and where unions are
democratic, Negroes have their due portion of power much according to
the rules in politics. National power relations are much like those in North-
ern communities.
The following discussion will deal only with Negro leaders. It must
never be forgotten, however, that Negro leaders ordinarily do not deal
with the white people but only with white leaders. Negro leaders are, in
fact, even more isolated from the whites in general than are the white
leaders from the Negroes. We shall find, however, that some of the
protest leaders actually do try to reach white public opinion. Walter White,
and the whole set-up of the N.A.A.C.P., is steadily hammering at the
glass plate, as did James Weldon Johnson and W. E. B. Du Bois before
him and Frederick Douglass still earlier. Such an effort is effective practi-
cally only on the national scene. The carefully worded ^
4etters to the
editor” by Negroes to liberal Southern newspapers, which are sometimes
printed—reminding the whites of their Constitution, their democratic faith
and their Christian religion, and respectfully drawing their attention to
some form of discrimination—represent local attempts in the same
direction.
The direct approach by Negroes to the white world stems almost entirely
from the protest motive. The accommodating Negro leaders generally do
not even attempt to reach white public opinion directly. On the national
scene, Booker T. Washington and, after him, Robert R. Moton were
exceptions. But Moton’s errand, when disclosing to the general public
^Vhat the Negro thinks,” was to give vent to a protest, modified by accept-
able and soothing words, and, in a degree, the same can be said of Washing-
ton. Washington’s main motive, however, was accommodation for a frice.
This was his message in the Atlanta speech of 1895 and in countless other
addresses to white audiences in the North and in the South, where he
promised Negro patience, boosted Negro efforts, begged for money for his
school and indulgence generally for his poor people. He had become a
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
