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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 34. Accommodating Leadership - 6. Several Qualifications
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73^ An American Dilemma
But there is enough truth in the statement to raise it above doubt that
the Negro preacher—and, to a lesser extent, the lodge ofHcial—has more
influence with the Negro masses than a white lower class preacher or lodge
leader has with the white masses. The majority of Negro preachers and
many local lodge leaders are not highly educated and do not belong to
the upper classes. Particularly is this true of the ministers in the lower
class churches and of the “jackJeg preachers,” who are the ones who
really reach down to the masses. Their uncouth manners, language, and
standards in general are assets in retaining a grip over lower class con-
gregations. Negro ministers who are educated and who have upper class
status actually often have to affect bad grammer and an accent and to use
figures of speech taken from the cotton field and the corn patch in order
to catch the attention of the masses and to exert some real leadership.’’
The great influence of the Negro preacher is exceptionally well known by
the whites, and he is usually considered as a force for “good race rela-
tions,” that is, for shepherding his flock into respect and obedience.*
Such are the barriers to and inhibitions of the Negroes of upper class
status in becoming effective mass leaders in the Negro community. But
with these reservations—and keeping in mind that a large portion of the
Negro masses is amorphous, utterly apathetic, and not “led” much at all,
but more like Thomas Nelson Page’s vision of a “vast sluggish mass of
uncooled lava”**—it remains true that leadership and upper class status
are strongly correlated in the South and that the tendency is toward an
even closer correlation.
The author also has the impression that Negro leaders, more often
than whites (among their own people), take on a rather dictatorial
and paternalistic attitude toward their Negro followers. They seem to
mimic, in a smaller degree, the role of the upper class white Southerner
in his relation to his Negro dependents. There is often a considerable
amount of bossing and ordering around in a Negro group assembled
for any purpose. The Negro upper class person in a leadership position
will often entertain the observer with much the same generalized deroga-
tory statements about the common run of Negroes as white people use.
When the Negro preacher in church starts out to elaborate the short-
comings of “the race,” the implication of his being a Negro leader is most
of the time apparent. The teacher’s cadence when addressing children in
the Negro school sounds more condescending than in white schools. The
organization of life in Negro colleges seems to be definitely less demo-
cratic than in white colleges in America, even, and not least, when the
staff of teachers is mainly Negro. The president in his relations to the
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