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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 34. Accommodating Leadership - 5. Accommodating Leadership and Class - 6. Several Qualifications
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Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 729
the Negro leadership to the lower class ^^Uncle Toms” of the old type.
One reason has already been mentioned: the paternalistic personal relations
in which they developed have decreased in frequency. There are fewer
^^good old darkies” available. Also, as wealth and education have become
somewhat more attainable to Negroes, those who were favored with these
things—the slowly growing upper class, who thus came to symbolize Negro
advancement and race pride—^supplanted the ^^darkies” in prestige in the
Negro community. Even white backing could not entirely shield the
^^darkies” from ridicule and contempt on the part of the Negroes of supe-
rior wealth and education.
In this situation, the upholding of the old-time ‘^darkies” as white-
appointed Negro leaders would have implied an unyielding refusal to
recognize the entire rising Negro class structure and the Negro’s respect
for education. It soon became apparent that such a policy would be ineffec-
tive and unrealistic. The development of a Negro upper class could not be
checked: as we have pointed out, this class grew partly because of segrega-
tion itself. A protracted resistance to recognizing the growth of class strati-
fication in the Negro community would also have run contrary to the
dominant class pattern within American white society. By analogy a Negro
class structure seemed the more natural as personal tics to white society
became broken, and as the Negro group was more definitely set apart.
Finally, a large portion of the Negro upper class is actually appointed
by the whites or is dependent for status upon the influential local whites.
The whites soon learned that they could find as many ‘‘Uncle Toms”
among Negroes of upper class status as among the old-time “darkies,” and
that educated persons often were much more capable of carrying out their
tasks as white-appointed Negro leaders.
6. Several Qualifications
Thus the whites accepted and strengthened the ever closer correlation
between leadership and upper class status. But the correlation is still not
perfect. Part of the explanation is the carry-over of old slavery attitudes
among whites. I have observed communities, particularly in the Old South,
where the leading whites have insisted on giving their ear even in public
affairs to some old, practically illiterate ex-servant, while cold-shouldering
the upper class Negroes. In the dependent situation of Southern Negroes,
the Negro community is then willy-nilly compelled to use those old
“darkies” as pleaders whenever the influential whites have to be appealed
to.
Under such circumstances, a tremendous internal friction in the Negro
community is likely to develop. The contempt of the upper class Negroes
for the uneducated white-appointed “leaders” becomes increased by resent-
ment born of a feeling of extreme humiliation. The “leaders,” on their
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