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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” - 5. Accommodating Leadership and Class
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Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 727
personality with prestige whose voice could pierce the caste wall. And he
was freely allowed audience since he toned down the Negro protest. On
the local scene the accommodation motive by Itself does not usually
encourage Negro leaders to such adventures of trying to reach behind the
white leaders to the white people, and there is generally no white public
which wants to listen to them.
5. Accommodating Leadership and Class
Negro leadership—as determined by caste in the way we have sketched
—
stands in an even closer relation to class than does white leadership. In a
previous part of this book,*^ we saw that Negro classes generally were
mainly a function of caste. One ramification of this thesis was touched upon
only lightly and spared for the present discussion of Negro leadership:
namely, that an individual Negro’s relation to white society is of utmost
importance for his class status in the Negro community.
It always gives a Negro scientist, physician, or lawyer prestige if he is
esteemed by his white colleagues. Prestige will bring him not only defer-
ence but also clients and increased earnings. The Negro press eagerly
records and plays up the slightest recognition shown a Negro by whites.
A professional position outside the segregated Negro world, even if unpre-
tentious, also carries high prestige. Being consulted by whites concerning
Negro welfare, taking part in mixed conferences or having any personal
relation to individual whites confers status.^ This common view in the
Negro community is, of course, realistic. White standards are, on the
average, higher, and an Indication that whites recognize a Negro as having
approached or reached those standards means most of the time that he is
exceptionally good in his line. More important still, the whites have the
power, and friendly consideration from whites confers power upon the
individual Negro participating In such a relation. The belief that whites
have power has been exaggerated in the Negro community, so that friendly
relations with certain individual whites confer status upon a Negro even
when these whites actually have no power.
The import of this is that leadershif conferred ufon a Negro by whites
raises his class status in the Negro community? Correspondingly, it can be
stated that an upper class position in the Negro community nearly auto-
matically, with certain exceptions that we shall note later, gives a Negro
the role of Negro leader.^ He is expected to act according to this role by
both whites and Negroes. Because most upper class Negrbes are leaders,
there is an extraordinarily dose correlation between leadership and class
position in the Negro community. On the other hand, there are more lower
class leaders among Negroes than among whites—partly because a much
greater proportion of Negroes are lower class and partly because of the
* See Chapter 32.
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