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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 34. Accommodating Leadership - 4. The “Glass Plate”
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Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 725
Negro side. The white leaders’ “function” to serve as liaison agents with
Negroes is only incidental to their power in white society. Unlike the
Negro leaders they have, in addition, to run the whole society. This is a
consequence of all the power being held on the white side. The Negroes
do not, therefore, pick their white agents in the same manner as the whites
choose their Negro ones. The Negroes cannot confer much power upon
whites of their choice. In the South they do not partake in the selection of
even political leaders. The Negroes—^through their leaders—have to accept
the white leadership as it exists, determined exclusively by the whites. They
have to try to “get in” with the ones who are already on top in white
society.*^
To this a few qualifications must be made. First, in some Southern
communities white persons, distinguished by birth, education, or wealth,
who have prestige but do not care to exert active leadership generally, may
occasionally be induced to step in and use their potential power in favor of
the Negroes or one individual Negro. When Negroes turn to such a person
they might be said to pick him as a white leader for their purposes. The
assumption is, however, that he already has latent power. The Negroes do
not award him influence by selecting him, as whites do when they pick a
Negro leader. He has, rather, to be careful not to assist the Negroes too
often and too much, as this might wear out his prestige. He might even
become known as a “nigger lover,” which would be the end of his useful-
ness to the Negroes.
Second, some white persons actually specialize in becoming the fixers
and pleaders for Negroes while they are not active as white leaders gener-
ally. They are the white interracialists of the South. In order to have
protracted influence they require moral and financial backing from North-
ern philanthropists or, lately, from the federal government.’* They should,
in addition, preferably have upper class status because of birth, education
or occupation. Even when they have both Northern backing and Southern
status their influence in matters affecting Negroes is likely to be uncertain
and narrow in scope. Acclaim from the Negroes is usually more a result of
their activity than a basis for the assumption of it.
In the North, the fact of Negro suffrage means that in the sphere of
politics proper Negroes participate in selecting the white officeholders (and
occasionally add some Negro representatives). Support from Negroes,
* It is true that, according to Southern aristocratic traditions, to have Negro dependents
—
who, in servant fashion, display gratitude and attachment—gives status in white society.
Negroes are, therefore, in the position to deliver something to the white leader which has
social significance. But in the Southern caste situation, the Negroes will have to be
prepared to pay this price to practically any possessor of white power and influence who
asks for it.
"See Chapter 21, Section 5.
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