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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 34. Accommodating Leadership - 6. Several Qualifications - 7. Accommodating Leaders in the North
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Chapter 34. Accommodating Leadership 733
professors and they in their relations to the students act more dictatorially
and more arbitrarily,
7- Accommodating Leaders in the North
In the North, there has never been much love for the lowly ^^arkies^’
on the part of the whites. They have never felt much of an interest or
inclination to lift poor, uneducated servants as leaders over the Negro
community. There has been more acclaim of social climbing generally
than in the South.® Almost from the beginning the Negro upper class
was accepted by the whites, without resistance, as the source of Negro
leaders.
On the other hand, probably a somewhat greater proportion of upper
class Negroes in the North do not care for the responsibilities and rewards
of being active Negro leaders. On the whole, the Negro masses are
less passive. The preachers have, perhaps, rather less prominence as
leaders and are, on the average, somewhat better educated and have a
higher social status.
Negro suffrage in the North, however, creates space for a political
leadership which, in order to be able to deliver the Negro vote to the
party machines, must be chosen from people who really meet the common
lower class Negroes. A good many of the petty politicians in Northern
cities are lower class Negroes. Negroes who enjoy a sort of ^^upper class”
status outside the respectable society—big-time gamblers, criminals, and
so on—are often the machine lieutenants, precinct captains and bosses, or
the “insiders” in the political game.
The odor of corruption and the connection with crime and vice which
often surrounds American city politics, particularly in the slums, deter,
of course, many upper class Negroes, as well as many upper class whites,
from taking any active part in political leadership. This does not mean,
however, that there is not a good deal of honest and devoted political
leadership among Northern Negroes. It comes often from upper class
Negroes. But proportionately the upper classes monopolize less of the
actual leadership in local politics than in other fields. And the labor unions,
which are stronger in the North, are training a new type of lower or
middle class Negro leader of particular importance in politics. They can
there often compete successfully with the upper class leaders. They are
just as often as honest and as devoted to the Negro cause as are the
upper class leaders.®
On the national scene, upper class status and, particularly, considerable
education and personal ability are necessary for Negro leaders.
* See Chapter 28, Section 9.
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